Posts tagged ‘ascension’

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September 4, 2024

Glory in the Highest – He Reigns

by Gordon Graham | Updated Sep 4 2024

The living, active word of God brings continual refreshment and renewal to our understanding as we seek to perceive its meaning in the historical context so as to rightly determine the application looking forward from there.

“For the Son of Man will come in the glory of His Father with His angels, and then He will reward each according to his works. –Matthew 16:27

In his commentary on this passage, Adam Clark wrote:

This seems to refer to Daniel 7:13-14:

“I kept looking in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven One like a Son of Man was coming, and He came up to the Ancient of Days and was presented before Him. And to Him was given dominion, glory and a kingdom, that all the peoples, nations and men of every language might serve Him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion which will not pass away; and His kingdom is one which will not be destroyed.” [NASB]

This was the glorious Mediatorial kingdom which Jesus Christ was now about to set up, by the destruction of the Jewish nation and polity, and the diffusion of His Gospel through the whole world… It is very likely that the words do not apply to the final judgment, to which they are generally referred; but to the wonderful display of God’s grace and power after the day of pentecost.

-Adam Clarke’s Commentary on the Bible | Adam Clarke, LL.D., F.S.A., (1715-1832) | Published in 1810-1826; public domain.

The context is the Lord’s “take up your cross and follow Me” teaching. Jesus encouraged His disciples to self-denial through sufferings, by comparing worldly afflictions with eternal life (cf Romans 8:18), and associating material gain with loss of immortal soul.

Then He foretells that He is “about to” [μέλλει / mellei] ascend to His throne in heaven where He sits at the right hand of the Father to “repay every man according to his deeds” as He did with the “days of vengeance” judgment on apostate Israel via the Roman armies in 70AD; and He continues to judge the world throughout His millennial reign until He has put all enemies under His feet. (cf. 1 Cor. 15:25).

Psalm 2 tells of the Messiah’s triumph and kingdom (note that in verse 6, by Zion is meant the church of God, especially in the gospel age under the New Covenant (cf. Heb. 12:22).

Gary DeMar’s analysis is helpful:

When these soon to take place judgments happened, God’s judgment was neither postponed nor stopped. They serve as warnings as Paul stated in 1 Corinthians 10:11: “Now these things happened to them [Old Covenant Israel] as an example [τύπος/type], and they were written for our instruction, upon whom the ends of the ages have arrived.” The “our instruction” refers to the people in Paul’s day related to the upcoming judgment on first-century Israel that took place in the lead up to and including the destruction of Jerusalem that happened in AD 70. All generations can learn from Israel’s moral mistakes as well as the moral mistakes of Rome, the French Revolution, the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, and modern-day United States. No one is exempt from God’s judgment.1

Understanding Matthew 16:27 as referring to our Lord’s glorious ascension up to the heavenly Session of His millennial reign better reconciles the historical context with ongoing future application than does considering it solely in reference to either the days of vengeance now past, or to the future 2nd Coming at the end of time.2 In Acts 1:9, Jesus is described as being taken up into heaven on a cloud, which parallels the imagery in Daniel 7:13.

The inauguration of the resurrected, glorified Christ’s reign in heaven at His ascension takes into account the “already / not yet” aspect of fulfilled prophecy, while also recognizing that God’s judgment was not only in 70AD but is continuous throughout time and history until the consummation of all things.

Here’s additional insight from Gary DeMar:

It is important to note that the noun “preterism” has been squeezed too far back as if it is about nothing more than what is past, about completed action in the past with no future application. The New Testament does address the issue of preterism and acknowledges that certain prophetic announcements—such as Christ’s Olivet Discourse—have been fulfilled in the past. But there is more to consider. There is an important nuance that needs to be spelled out.

Let us get at it this way: Per the Greek, which verb tense best expresses what preterism is as the New Testament understands it? Is it merely the way the noun “preterism” is defined in a standard dictionary as simply referring to the past tense or is it the way the New Testament defines it? Only referring to the past tense and nothing more than that is not the best way to define what Biblical preterism is. The most accurate verb tense in the Greek to render what Biblical preterism really is [is] the perfect tense.

What is the difference between the standard past tense and this perfect tense? Like the standard past tense, the perfect tense also speaks of completed action in the past, BUT the perfect tense has much more nuance to it: The perfect tense in Greek speaks of completed action in the past whose consequences continue into the future by way of application. This is what true Biblical preterism is. It is very important to grasp this distinction. True preterism does not pit the past against the future. Rather, Biblical preterism organically unites the past and the future.3

In his commentary on Luke 19:13, And he called his ten servants, and delivered them ten pounds, and said unto them, “Occupy till I come”, Benson insightfully brings out the perfect tense structure of the passage covering past, present and future application:

And said unto them, occupy till I come — till I return to take an account of the use you have made of what has been intrusted to your management. The spiritual sense is, use your endowments, gifts, and graces, with all your privileges and advantages, for the good of your fellow-creatures, and the glory of God, till I come to visit the nation; to destroy Jerusalem; to execute judgment on my enemies, and on those of my people in successive ages; to require your souls of you by death, and to judge mankind in the day of final accounts.

-Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

The coming and kingdom of Christ are not facts of of the future only, but of the past, present, and future. The crafty deception that messianic prophecy remains unrealized and ever looming in our near future opposes the biblical truth of fulfillment in and by the Lord Jesus Christ. False teachers feed the expectation of a fleshy messianic kingdom yet to be established on earth in accordance with the plague of scofieldian dispensationalism which has infected the church at large, even as it is both exegetically absurd and spiritually apostate.

As the wickedness of the modern day Zionist state of Israel is being exposed, awareness of the satanic conspiracy known as the ‘New World Order’4 is increasing. Scales are dropping from eyes. A “red pill” antidote compiled to counter Zionism’s long-term, pervasive brainwashing is available here.

Let us speak truth to power as the Light of the world shines unto eternal day.

1 Gary Demar, Does Isaiah 13 Predict the ‘End of the World’?, Jan 9 2024

2 Gorphilus DeJesus, Eschatology Between the Extremes, Dec 11 2022

3 Gary DeMar, So What Do We Do Now?, Jan 3 2024

4 Makia Freeman, Is the New World Order a Jewish Conspiracy? No, it’s a Satanic Conspiracy, Oct 14 2019

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Gordon Graham is a Ruling Elder in the Presbyterian Church in America and Clerk of Session at Auburn Road Presbyterian Church in Venice, FL. Husband of one wife, father and brother of two each, and brother in Spirit of many, he also writes under the pen name of Gorphilus DeJesus.

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May 27, 2022

The Last from the Past

The last days are not a future period of time leading up to the rapture of the church and the end of the world. Nor are the last days describing the full contemporary Christian era. It hardly seems consistent to associate the term “days” with two millennia of years! A closer look at the New Testament usage of the term will reveal that the last days represented a now historical period of time. It was a fitting description of the final days of the Old Covenant, a period lasting a little over forty years. The first century earthly ministry of Jesus ushered in these last days. In this way, the “last days” of the New Testament were actually the “first days” of the New Testament church.1

The prophet Joel described some miraculous activities that would characterize the last days (Joel 2:28-31). The apostle Peter used the prophetic words of Joel to explain the miraculous events that were occurring at that time (Acts 2:16-17). The fact that those events were ascribed as being a fulfillment of the words of Joel indicated that the last days had arrived. If the inspired prophet was referencing the entire Christian era from Pentecost until the present, would we not expect these same miraculous activities to still be genuinely occurring — “in the last days”?2

It is sometimes said that the whole period between the incarnation and the end of the world is regarded in the New Testament as ‘the end of the age’, but this bears a manifest incongruity in its very front. How could the end of a period be a long protracted duration? Especially how could it be longer than the period of which it is the end? More time has already elapsed since the incarnation than from the giving of the law to the first coming of Christ: so that, on this hypothesis, the end of the age is a great deal longer than the age itself.3

Those Last Days Now Past

“God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son…” (Hebrews 1:1)

A video presentation by a prominent creationist ministry, which promotes a biblical view of the earth’s age over and against the uniformitarian “millions of years” view, takes in to account the catastrophic effects of the global flood as recorded in the book of Genesis. However, the impact of the otherwise excellent production is weakened as the presenter states that today’s secular scientists whom disregard Scripture’s record of the Genesis flood are examples of the “scoffers” which the apostle Peter wrote would come in “the last days” (cf. 2 Peter 3:3-6). The devastating problem with this statement is that the inspired apostle wrote those words in the 1st century when the last days of the old covenant were at hand; so that the last days referred to were then, not now.

This is a major interpretive error made by modern-day Christians, which has become well ensconced in many hearts and minds, especially with the high volume of book sales along with seminary teachings by authors and professors based on the misapplication of the past to our present and near future. It is as if someone were to write in broad, non-specific terms about the last days of the Obama federal administration when they were (thankfully) nearing, and someone were to read it two thousand years or so from then, and assume the dynamics of the situation described to be directly applicable to the reader there and then, instead of relevant to the U.S.A. in the year of our Lord 2016.

When it comes to the Holy Bible which is the word of God, surely there is far-reaching application as well as eternal truth to be gleaned, but the correct interpretation must be gathered based upon the historical context and the understanding of the original audience. The last days from two thousand years ago cannot be the same last days today, or they would not have been the last days then. The realization that the “last days” were in the past, and that much of Bible prophecy (not all!) was fulfilled in the 1st century is key to sound discernment of the Scriptures.

Holy writ indeed informs us that the Lord Jesus Christ is reigning now. Peter also quoted Psalm 110:1 and said Jesus is exalted at God’s right hand (position of authority), to rule from the Majesty on High (cf Acts 2:34-36; Hebrews 1:3). Jesus Himself said, just prior to His ascension, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth” (Matthew 28:18). Hence, He is now King at God’s right hand, just as the Psalm prophesied. The apostle Paul further expounded that He must reign till He has put all enemies under His feet. The last enemy that will be destroyed is death (1 Corinthians 15:25-26). This has not happened yet, and of course we cling to the blessed hope of the resurrection of the body when the end comes and Jesus returns bodily in final judgment and to usher in the eternal state. Until then, the almighty, Triune God we serve is certainly to be victorious in time and history.

So the Messianic kingdom has already been established, i.e. we are in the “millennium” now. The last days of the old covenant, including the great tribulation prophesied in Matthew chapter 24, were the days leading up to and including the destruction of the temple, the city of Jerusalem and apostate Israel when the Son of Man “came” with judgment in 70 AD. “The last days” are now in the past, and followed from the work that He “finished” in 30 AD (cf John 19:30). The once for all sacrifice of the Lamb of God has superseded the old system of animal sacrifices, and now its up to the church, with steadfast faith in the power of the Holy Spirit, to look forward to and work towards the building of the kingdom on earth as it is in heaven… for, also as it is written, the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea (Habakkuk 2:14).

The effectiveness of biblical apologetics as well as the fruitfulness of Christian cultural engagement efforts will be greatly increased by our faithful witness to the truth that the last days are in the past. The long haul to triumph will likely extend beyond the relatively short lifetimes of those of us alive today; there’s no time to waste. Let’s get busy using our talents in good and faithful service to our King (cf Matthew 25:23), leaving an example for future generations to follow. Keep the faith. Stand strong in the Truth. The worst is past and the best is yet to come.

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1 John M. Buttrey II, The Book of Revelation – A Brief Commentary and study Guide
2 Ibid
3 James Stuart Russell, The Parousia – The New Testament Doctrine of Christ’s Second Coming*
*Russel’s work teaches that Christ’s Second Coming took place in 70 AD, at which time the dead saints were resurrected and caught-up to Heaven, and the living saints were bodily caught-up to Heaven 😮. Even while not concurring with that startling conclusion, one can appreciate the many astute observations Russell makes such as the “manifest incongruity” of the end of the age being longer than the age of which it is the end of; akin to the “last days” lasting for thousands of years.

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