Optimism

The post The Seven Vials — Part 2: Our Vision caused interesting reactions. One reader suggested I am smoking a hallucinogenic drug. Speaking of his younger days, he said, “none of us had the wild visions you have had and/or [sic] still having. Perhaps you would send me some of…

The Song of Moses was an age-changing song. As we saw in our last post, John hears the saints in heaven singing it in the Vision of Seven Vials. God would soon judge apostate Israel. This judgment would end the Mosaic age and allow the Messianic Age—started by Jesus during his…

The Seven Mystic Figures vision makes a slight change to the timeframe of the first two judgment visions. They concentrated on the “great tribulation” Jesus predicted in the Olivet Discourse (Matt. 24:1–3, 21, 34; Rev. 7:14). This vision focuses on the entire generation of Jesus’s life on earth. It begins with…

If I were John Bunyan, author of the famous Pilgrim’s Progress, I might write an allegory about Mr. Inmillennialist traveling through the book of Revelation with four companions, Misters Premillennialist, Dispensationalist, Postmillennialist, and Amillennialist. At the end of the third vision, they would say to him, The first six trumpets…

Jesus taught parables that show the kingdom of heaven changing. For example, it grows like a mustard seed becoming a tree (Matt. 13:31–32). But can God’s kingdom grow? Our first answer might be that it cannot grow: God’s domain already includes heaven and earth. He exercises absolute rule everywhere. God…

The message is hard to avoid: Caesar is Lord! Coins circulate throughout the Roman Empire proclaiming the Emperor’s divinity. The “divine” power has increased since Julius, the first Caesar, established the Empire in 49 BC. One of his successors, Nero, now uses it in every area of life. In the…

Paul wants the Hebrew believers—and us—to know that Christianity excels Judaism. Our previous posts examined his two opening arguments: Christ excels the agents—angels (Heb. 1:4 – 2:18) and Moses (Heb. 3:1 – 4:13)—through whom God gave the law. This post will examine Paul’s next step as he argues that Christ…

Paul shows the superiority of the Messianic covenant to the Mosaic in Heb. 1:4 – 2:18. He does so by comparing the agents through which God established the covenants. The Mosaic covenant—also called “the law”—came with a prominent display of angelic ministry. Israel “received the law by the disposition of…

We are constructing a model of biblical prophecy that, we hope, will allow Christians to better understand the Bible. We are almost ready to show the usefulness of our model by applying it to extended passages throughout God’s Word. A little tidying up of our reasoning will prepare us to…

[Aug. 6, 2018 note: Some language in this post shows the status of the overall blog at the time of writing. A downloadable PDF—A Summary of Inmillennialism—now provides a full overview. Still, this post contains material not found in the Summary.]   Warning! This page plays the role of spoiler.…