The Millennium, the 1000 years of Revelation 20...

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The Millennium, the 1000 years of Revelation 20...

Post #1

Post by Checkpoint »

This thread stems from the following exchange between myself and Pinseeker:


PinSeeker wrote:

The millennium of Revelation 20 is not a future event. It was when Jeremiah prophesied, obviously, but is not anymore. Or, to be more exacting, it's no longer merely a future event.

Checkpoint asked:

Then why do so many believers think of it as yet future only?

Pinseeker explained:

For at least two reasons, I think:

1. A basic misunderstanding of Revelation as a whole, and the Millennium of chapter 20 included.

2. Many believers (primarily western believers) have bought into the heresy of the "rapture," which came about in the early 19th century. It's not that they are heretics, it's just that that's all they've ever been exposed to.
That's one take from one school of thought.

Your take may be similar or be completely different.

Please share it here, and tell us why you hold that position.

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Re: The Millennium, the 1000 years of Revelation 20...

Post #301

Post by JehovahsWitness »

myth-one.com wrote: Why was the Word made flesh according to the scriptures?

I understand you believe something happened to THE WORD but it's not clear what you think that was...

From what I gather you seem to believe that THE WORD "split" into two entities, becoming two seperate independent individuals (what you call "two beings"). One of which was given a physical body while the other "half" stayed in heaven. When the second (physical) part of THE WORD had finished his earthly mission he/it returned to heaven and "re-merged" in the body of his other half ("given the body of THE WORD").

To avoid the two different individuals living in the same body, the one that had sejourned on earth was terminated and ceased to exist as a separate individual.


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Re: The Millennium, the 1000 years of Revelation 20...

Post #302

Post by Checkpoint »

[Replying to post 296 by JehovahsWitness]
NOTE All posts I write represent my personal faith based beliefs as one of Jehovah's Witnesses
I kinda had that impression!

You do it well.

Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

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Re: The Millennium, the 1000 years of Revelation 20...

Post #303

Post by Checkpoint »

[Replying to post 173 by PinSeeker]
But I do disagree with your overall take on these things. And this is not a new disagreement. It's an debate basically between premillennialism and amillennialism, and it's not a new disagreement. You are where you are on it. I am where I am. We're not going to resolve it
Yes, schools of thought; approaches to issues, have a habit of sticking around, and believers tend to be stuck in one or the other point of view.

Change from one to another happens, but is a comparative rarity, as far as I know.

On this issue, I did flip over from one view to the other.

Grace and peace to you.
Last edited by Checkpoint on Mon Jun 17, 2019 1:49 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: The Millennium, the 1000 years of Revelation 20...

Post #304

Post by Checkpoint »

[Replying to post 173 by PinSeeker]
2. Many believers (primarily western believers) have bought into the heresy of the "rapture," which came about in the early 19th century. It's not that they are heretics, it's just that that's all they've ever been exposed to.
It seems that no one has picked up on this statement of yours, until now.

So here goes!

I have to ask a few obvious questions.

The "rapture" is a heresy?

What exactly is this "rapture" heresy?

What is the "orthodoxy" that should instead be, the "truth", as you see it, about any "rapture"?

What does this "rapture" belief have to do with millennium beliefs?

Grace and peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

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Re: The Millennium, the 1000 years of Revelation 20...

Post #305

Post by PinSeeker »

JehovahsWitness wrote: [Replying to post 295 by JehovahsWitness]


Image

IS ALMIGHTY GOD A PERSON?
  • Yes absolutely. GOD is not a human person, he is a spirit person. A spirit person is an intelligent individual with a spirit body. A spirit person is a non-physical being capable of rational self generated thought, and capable of making moral decisions that govern that one's actions (free will).
IS GOD THE ONLY SPIRIT PERSON THAT EXISTS?
  • No. God was the only spirit person in existence before he created other intelligent spirits like himself. The first and foremost was THE WORD, the mighty spirit person that later came to earth as the human Jesus. Later God made many millions of other intelligent non-physical spirit person's, we often refer to these as " angels". Humans cannot see spirits but spirits can see humans.

    Further reading : Who is Jesus Christ?
    https://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/2005681
IS THE HOLY SPIRIT A "PERSON"?
  • No, in the bible "holy spirit" refers to God's active force or power. One could think of it as what God "zaps" people with. Holy spirit is simply Gods power, the force uses to get things done. Much like the wind or electricity holy spirit is something not someone.

    For a more detailed response on HOLY SPIRIT please follow this link
    http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... 826#413826

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NOTE All posts I write represent my personal faith based beliefs as one of Jehovah's Witnesses
Well, for my part, I fail to see how anyone can read John 14 and not acknowledge that God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit are three distinct living beings. You agree that God and Jesus are distinct persons, so we can proceed directly to the Spirit.

In John 14, Jesus is speaking with His disciples. In verse 16 and 17, it is undeniable that Jesus is distinguishing between the Father, Himself, and the Spirit, and describing the Spirit's role as necessary and different from God's and His own in accomplishing and bringing to completion the great act of salvation/redemption. He says:

"I..." (Jesus, of course)

"... will ask the Father, ..." (God)

"... and He..." (God)

"... will give you another Helper, ..." (the Holy Spirit)

"... that He..." (bolded third-person personal pronoun referring to the Holy Spirit) "... may be with you forever;..."

"... that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him..." (all bolded third-person personal pronouns referring to the Holy Spirit)

"... but you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you." (bolded third-person personal pronouns referring to the Holy Spirit)

And then skipping down to verse 26, Jesus again refers to the Holy Spirit in very personal terms and further defines His role:

"But the Helper,..." (the Holy Spirit)

"...whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you." (bolded third-person personal pronouns referring to the Holy Spirit)

So unless Jesus is reckoned to be somehow "mistaken," the Holy Spirit is another living being -- person -- distinct from God the Father and Jesus.

And, I'll pull in another thread here: Jesus indeed clearly acknowledges Himself as God (but God the Son, not God the Father) in John 14. He says to His disciples, "If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; from now on you know Him, and have seen Him." Philip, not quite grasping the full breadth of what Jesus is saying, says, "Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us." To which Jesus replies, "Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me?" (vv 7-10) At the end of that passage, Jesus tells His disciples to keep His commandments. His commandments. As in, "I am the LORD thy God; you shall have no other Gods before me..." and every single one that follows.

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Re: The Millennium, the 1000 years of Revelation 20...

Post #306

Post by PinSeeker »

Checkpoint wrote: [Replying to post 173 by PinSeeker]
2. Many believers (primarily western believers) have bought into the heresy of the "rapture," which came about in the early 19th century. It's not that they are heretics, it's just that that's all they've ever been exposed to.
It seems that no one has picked up on this statement of yours, until now.

So here goes!

I have to ask a few obvious questions.

The "rapture" is a heresy?

What exactly is this "rapture" heresy?

What is the "orthodoxy" that should instead be, the "truth", as you see it, about any "rapture"?

What does this "rapture" belief have to do with millennium beliefs?

Grace and peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
Meh... Perhaps "heresy" is too strong a word. But at the very least, it's a terrible misunderstanding of Scripture that originated in the early part of the 19th century (1830 or so) and has been bought into by large numbers of Christians, primarily western Christians.

As for your last question, all Christians believe in a millennium of Revelation 20, but not all agree (obviously) on the nature of it. Based on various passages from Scripture (including Daniel, Matthew, 1st Thessalonians, and Revelation), dispensational Christians believe Jesus will remove His church for a period of a few years (seven, to be exact) and then bring them all back after a "Great Tribulation," in which He gives folks "one last chance" to believe in Him. And then at the end of that seven-year period, the Millennium of Revelation 20 -- which they would say is a literal 1000-year reign of Christ on David's throne -- will commence. You know all this, don't you? Or do you not know what the "Rapture" is purported to be?

At any rate, there is absolutely no biblical basis for belief in a "Rapture," as it is propagated. Jesus return will be once and for all. The trump shall resound, and the Lord shall descend, as the great hymn ("It is Well") says. It will be rapturous, so to speak, as in sudden and complete, but again, no "Rapture," as in the "Left Behind" books and movies. It's just a terrible misunderstanding of Scripture.

But, even so, it's okay... I mean, being dispensationalist and believing in a pre-millennial "Rapture" and seven-year "Great Tribulation" doesn't make one somehow "less Christian." It just makes him/her... mistaken. The correct view (in my opinion, and that of most orthodox Christians) is that Jesus reigns now. The kingdom of God is here now and has been since Jesus came the first time; He Himself acknowledged that. We are in the midst of the millennium of Revelation 20 (which is not a literal 1000-year period) now, and have been since the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost forty days after Jesus ascended to heaven and took His seat of power at God's right hand. These are times of tribulation; we all have trials of various kinds all the time; this is why we have the Helper, the Holy Spirit. And when Jesus comes back, He will usher in His kingdom in its fullness.

Hard to write about something so big and so great in just a few short paragraphs...

Grace and peace to you, Checkpoint.

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Re: The Millennium, the 1000 years of Revelation 20...

Post #307

Post by myth-one.com »


PinSeeker wrote:The kingdom of God is here now and has been since Jesus came the first time . . .
Then PinSeeker wrote:And when Jesus comes back, He will usher in His kingdom in its fullness.
Are their two competing kingdoms?

One of God and one of Jesus?

If the Kingdom of God is here now, why are we instructed to pray for it to return to the earth in the Lord's prayer?
Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. (Matthew 6:10)

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Re: The Millennium, the 1000 years of Revelation 20...

Post #308

Post by PinSeeker »

myth-one.com wrote:
PinSeeker wrote:The kingdom of God is here now and has been since Jesus came the first time . . .
Then PinSeeker wrote:And when Jesus comes back, He will usher in His kingdom in its fullness.
Are their two competing kingdoms? One of God and one of Jesus?
Nope. God and Jesus are one; God is in Jesus and Jesus is in the Father.
myth-one.com wrote:If the Kingdom of God is here now, why are we instructed to pray for it to return to the earth in the Lord's prayer?
Because it's not yet here in its fullness, as I said above.

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Re: The Millennium, the 1000 years of Revelation 20...

Post #309

Post by myth-one.com »

PinSeeker wrote:
myth-one.com wrote:
PinSeeker wrote:The kingdom of God is here now and has been since Jesus came the first time . . .
Then PinSeeker wrote:And when Jesus comes back, He will usher in His kingdom in its fullness.
Are their two competing kingdoms? One of God and one of Jesus?
Nope. God and Jesus are one; God is in Jesus and Jesus is in the Father.
myth-one.com wrote:If the Kingdom of God is here now, why are we instructed to pray for it to return to the earth in the Lord's prayer?
Because it's not yet here in its fullness, as I said above.
So God got it wrong?

Matthew 6:10 should be corrected as follows?

Thy full kingdom come. Thy full will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. (Matthew 6:10)

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Re: The Millennium, the 1000 years of Revelation 20...

Post #310

Post by JehovahsWitness »

QUESTION What is God's spirit?

God's spirit in the bible is God's active force or God's power; the power by which God achieves things. The Hebrew word translated into the English "spirit" is ruach and stems from the word "wind". Thus it depicts an unseen or invisible force that can have visible effects.
So for example if God wants to move a rock from point A to point B He doesn't have to literally leave the location of heaven and come down to earth to lift it up to move it, but can use his active force, or power in motion to do this.
The bible refers to this spirit as being "holy" when it is used for specific purposes to further His will and purpose, for example tsending forth this force/power to make a tired believer feel energized, miraculously move a bible writer to remember or record certain information, or in the case of Moses engrave the Ten Commandments on stone. It is this force that enabled Jesus and other faithful Prophets to perform miracles.
  • NOTE: The word "spirit" is not to be confused with the word "soul", "soul" and "spirit" are not the same words. The word "soul" is not interchangable with "spirit". In scripture a SOUL referes to a flesh and blood, physical breathing living person or animal or the life they enjoy as such. (The expression "immortal soul" never appears anywhere in the bible and biblically is a fictional concept that stems from ancient pagans.)


CONCLUSION An unbias reading of scripture has lead many reasonable people to conclude that the holy spirit is not an independent intelligent individual (such as Jesus or Gabriel) living seperate from God sent to earth on specific mission but rather is simply God's active force that he sends or withdraws according to his will to achieve his purpose

JEHOVAH'S WITNESS





FURTHER READING
https://www.jw.org/en/bible-teachings/q ... ly-spirit/




RELATED POSTS

What is God's spirit? Tigger2.
http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... 796#868796

Credit for the quotes goes to Tigger2
http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... 238#970238
“In the New Testament .... The Holy Spirit is conceived as an impersonal power by which God effects his will through Christ.� - p. 34, An Encyclopedia of Religion, V. Ferm, ed.

“It is important to realize that for the first Christians the Spirit was thought of in terms of divine power.� - New Bible Dictionary, p. 1139, Tyndale House Publishers (trinitarian), 1984.

“The emergence of Trinitarian speculations in the early church theology led to great difficulties in the article about the Holy Spirit. For the being-as-person of the Holy Spirit, which is evident in the New Testament as divine power...could not be clearly grasped.... The Holy Spirit was viewed not as a personal figure but rather as a power� - The New Encyclopedia Britannica.
CATHOLIC SOURCES
"The majority of NT texts reveal God's spirit as someTHING, not someone." - New Catholic Encyclopedia, p. 575, Vol. 13, 1967

"In the OT the Holy Spirit means a divine power ..." -p. 269, The Catholic Encyclopedia, 1976

"On the whole, the New Testament, like the Old, speaks of the Spirit as a divine energy or power." - A Catholic Dictionary

The Catholic Encyclopedia: “Nowhere in the Old Testament do we find any clear indication of a Third Person.�

Catholic theologian Fortman: “The Jews never regarded the spirit as a person; nor is there any solid evidence that any Old Testament writer held this view. . . . The Holy Spirit is usually presented in the Synoptics [Gospels] and in Acts as a divine force or power.�

The New Catholic Encyclopedia: “The O[ld] T[estament] clearly does not envisage God’s spirit as a person . . . God’s spirit is simply God’s power. If it is sometimes represented as being distinct from God, it is because the breath of Yahweh acts exteriorly.� It also says: “The majority of N[ew] T[estament] texts reveal God’s spirit as something, not someone; this is especially seen in the parallelism between the spirit and the power of God.�

A Catholic Dictionary: “On the whole, the New Testament, like the Old, speaks of the spirit as a divine energy or power.�
Last edited by JehovahsWitness on Tue Jul 09, 2019 4:19 am, edited 6 times in total.
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"For if we live, we live to Jehovah, and if we die, we die to Jehovah. So both if we live and if we die, we belong to Jehovah" -
Romans 14:8

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