Fulfilled Theology - Preterist
Discussion All Areas Of Systematic Theology
What was the first heaven and earth passed away in Rev. 21?
Everyone,
Please share your view what does this mean ("heaven" and "earth")? Also what about "no more sea"?
From Gen. 1-3?
The Mosaic covenant?
Something else?
This is only for the full preterist view and it should be interesting.
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by JL Vaughn on
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Don,
No covenant creationist has claimed that the animals in Gen. 1-3 were gentiles. This is a false accusation made my Frost, Bradford, and Bennett.
What Norm Voss has said is that Scripture (for example Peter's vision, the visions of the prophets, Jesus' name calling, etc.), and more so 2nd Temple period Jewish literature, uses animals to represent people. Clean animals and snakes and serpents to represent those in covenant. Unclean animals as non-covenant people in the land. Fish as distant non-covenant people, i.e. gentiles. We need to consider the source of these representations. That source is Genesis.
For example, you know that in some parts of Scripture, sheep are sheep. In other places, they are real sheep that represent covenant people. And in still others, they are not sheep at all, but faithful covenant people. Agreed? Okay then, what do you do with passages which give little detail? Which sheep are hose? Do you assume they are sheep? The ancients didn't. Should we consider or ignore the understanding of the ancients?
The text wasn't written to us in our time, culture, and language. It was written to them. They know better. We should try to read Scripture in a manner consistent with the way the culture that produced it would have understood it.
This means, we need to consider that the clean animals and the vile animals ("You brood of serpents") very likely are not just animals, they are either animals that represent covenant people or they are covenant people and not animals at all.
Does that help? Thoughts?
Donald said:Jeff and Taffy,
What about the animals in Gen. 1-3? I think some covenant creationists claimed they were the "Gentiles" but I am not convinced. The reason is that only Adam and his descendants were in need for the redemption, not for the "non-Adamites"/"Gentiles"/those who were not in covenant with God.
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Permalink Reply by Taffy on
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IMO people were indeed 'represented' in Gen 1-3 under the "animal" motif, but consider:NONE but Adam (and those "IN" him; his "generations"; Gen 5:1) bore the "image of "God" (Gen 1:26-28, 5:3, 9:6, 1 Cor 11:7, 15:49, James 3:9). Therefore NONE but him could "corrupt" that "image", right? Therefore NONE but him (and his posterity) needed to have it "restored", right (Rom 8:29, 1 Cor 15:49, 2 Cor 3:18, Col 3:10)? And those who had it "restored" were called "Christians" in the NT.Also, NONE but Adam was threatened with "Death" (Gen 2:17), therefore NONE but him (and those "IN" him) could be "condemned" by it, right (Gen 2:7, Rom 5:12, 14, 17-18, 1 Cor 15:22)? Therefore, NONE but them needed to be "saved" from it, right? Hence the promised "Seed"/"Son" of Adam (Gen 3:15, Gal 3:16).So we see, BIBLICAL "salvation" was related SOLELY to the adamic peoples (see my thread, BIBLICAL "sin & Death"). The "first" and "last" adams setting the boundaries of God's 'special' dealings with covenant-"man" on this earth.It could be that some wish to see non-covenant peoples in God's 'plan of salvation' (which they confuse with BIBLICAL "gentiles") because they can then somehow extend it to include "all humanity" (or at the very least, themselves). But there's no need to FORCE this upon scripture. We can STILL worship God, give Him "glory" and "hope" in what's to come — and that in a more 'honest' way (see my thread, "Preterism & Hope"; post-parousia).As was common amongst ancient writers, post-Flood authors continued at times to use 'cosmological' features (stars, vegetation, animals, etc) to 'represent' people. For example, those of Adam's "holy"/"clean" line who came through Shem, and the "nations" of his wider, "unclean" posterity who came through Ham and Japheth; Ac 10:28, 17:28-29 (ancient Chinese, Aborigines, etc, and THEIR "nations", had no potion in any of it). ALL of those had been "IN" Adam, both in his state of innocence AND "sin", and so ALL were related by "blood" and "condemnation" (Gen 1:26, 28, 3:20, 9:1, 6, 9, 19, 10:5, 11:8, Ac 17:26-28, etc); hence my distinction, 'covenant genealogy'.As stated in my last post, IMO the "animals" of Gen 1-3 (inc. "sea" creatures such as the "serpent"; Gen 3:1, Rev 12:9, Isa 27:1) represented a people originally chosen by God to serve Him in this life AND the next. They had the "high" calling of ministering to ("helping") the "man" He'd "fashioned"/"formed" in His "own image" and covenanted Himself to. They dwelt in the "land" and were originally placed in "subjection" to Adam (Gen 1:26). He lost his right to "rule over" them but it was regained by his "Seed" (Heb 2:5-9).
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Permalink Reply by Donald on
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Jeff and Taffy,
Thanks. Maybe it's just me and I am not convinced. I would like to hear some more what others have to say about this.
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Hi Don, as I've answered your questions please could you answer a few of mine:
1. Do you believe the adamic "world" (i.e. its "animals") was placed under "subjection" to Adam's "rule"? IOW, was he to have "dominion" over it (Gen 1:26)? If yes, do you believe that God commanded Adam to "rule over" slugs, jelly-fish and crows?
2. Do you see any correlation between Adam's "rule" over the old "world" (Gen 1:26; animals) and his "Seed's" "rule" over the "new"? "For He has not put the world to come, of which we speak, in subjection to angels.." (Heb 2:5)? If yes, the animals of Gen 1-3 could = "angels", right?
3. Adam would not have sought "help" from those not sent to "help" him in the first place, right (consider Heb 1:14)? God "brought" those animals to Adam, right (Gen 2:19)? He was meant to find a "helper" from amongst them and assuage his loneliness with a companion (Gen 2:18). [The "helper" he did eventually have became his wife; Matt 19:4-5.] Do you really believe God "brought" literal animals to Adam for these purposes?
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Hi Taffy,
At this point:
1. Yes and yes.
2. I do not see the same thing as you do. I think the holy angels are actual angels from heaven.
3. I still think the animals were the literal animals in Gen. 1-9.
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Don,
A more important question, and a question that really should be asked first is, "Was Adam truly alone, or did he live in an already populated world?" If you believe Adam was truly alone, then it doesn't matter. You can't and won't consider the animals possibly being people.
Scripture doesn't outright say. But Scripture also little about the thousands of servants the latter patriarchs had. What clues does Scripture give?
Cain's wife is a popular one to discuss, as is who were the people Cain subjugated to build Enoch. Cain's sister and brothers doesn't pass the smell test.
Everybody agrees Adam was created to be priest and king. But of whom? People that didn't yet exist or people already in existence?
The land of Eden, would have been understood as the land controlled by the city-state Eden. Contemporary to Adam? Or came into existence later? If later, then who added it to the account and why? The city Eden ceased to exist long before Moses.
The serpent of old somehow survived the Flood and was persecuting the Church in Revelation. The serpent's brood, his offspring, were alive and well at the time of Christ. At the time of Christ, the serpent and his brood were people. Was the serpent always a person? or did the serpent become a person?
The Cherubs who guarded the way to the Tree of Life, had a separate covenant with God and were made rich by the spoils of Eden. (Ez. 28)
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Hi Don. As you know from my last few posts, I believe scripture suggests God's "messengers" were those He "brought" to "help" the "man" He'd "fashioned"/"formed" in His own righteous "image".
Adam wouldn't look for a "helper" amongst those not "brought" to "help" him in the first place, right? And the only ones who could TRULY "help" him were people, right? (I'm not sure what "help" you think centipedes would be to him?) If my wife was looking for a bit more companionship and "help" in her Cooking Club, what do you believe she'd think of me if I "brought" a load of frogs and gazelles to her? Surely you don't believe I'd mock her in this way? yet you believe God mocked Adam?
"And the Lord God said, 'It is not good that man should BE ALONE; I will make him a HELPER comparable to him'.."(Gen 2:18). After He said this we read, "Out of the ground the Lord God formed every BEAST of the field and every BIRD of the air (comp. Rev 8:13, 14:6, 19:17) and BROUGHT THEM TO ADAM.." (Gen 2:19). Whilst "naming" them he was meant to look for a "helper comparable to him" FROM AMONGST THEM (Gen 2:20).
Rather than just saying you "believe they were literal animals" and add nothing else (which isn't very helpful), please could you explain why you believe God "brought" literal animals to Adam so that;
1/ He could find a "helper" from amongst them?
2/ He would not be "alone" once he'd found one? (We could have a million grasshoppers "brought" to us by God but we'd still be "alone", right?) Was he being mocked?
In your reply please also consider the implication that once a "helper" had been "found", that 'one' would become Adam's partner/wife (Gen 2:25).
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If the "Serpent" was a man (which IMO he was) he couldn't have lived passed the Flood 'physically', which came 1,600 years after Gen 1.
But like Jeff I also believe he survived it along with all the others who left their "proper domain" as "messengers" of God "helping" the "man" He'd "fashioned" in His "own" righteous "image" and covenanted Himself to (Jude 1:6). That is, their "unclean spirits" survived it (Gen 3:1, Matt 10:1, 25:41, Rev 12:9).
Jesus & John the Baptist acknowledged their hearers were "children of Abraham" (Matt 3:9) and "sons of the Kingdom" (Matt 8:11-12), yet they called some of them a "brood of vipers" (Matt 3:7, 12:34) and children of the "devil" (Jn 8:44). Jesus also called Judas a "devil" (Jn 6:70) and Peter, "Satan" (Matt 16:23).
It's evident in these cases some were being compared 'figuratively' to the "wicked one" (Matt 13:19); the "one" they all feared and hated (Heb 2:14-15). But that didn't mean they were the 'literal' posterity of the "serpent"!
He was the "father of lies" (Jn 8:44) and originator of all opposition to Christ (1 Jn 2:22), therefore, he was the "father" of all who manifested a similar spirit.
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Taffy,
By typical Hebrew usage, a person is his father, his grandfather, etc., whether by bloodline, adoption, or covenant. The serpent of old was not the literal serpent in the garden, but a man (or men) who was the serpent's descendant(s) by one of those means.
Blessings.
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Along that line, It is important to remember that the last Adam searched for 3 years and could not find a wife. He too was put into a deep sleep and a wife was fashioned from His side. He then had too wait 40 years for that wife to grow to maturity.
Taffy said:Hi Don.
please could you explain why you believe God "brought" literal animals to Adam so that;
1/ He could find a "helper" from amongst them?
2/ He would not be "alone" once he'd found one? (We could have a million grasshoppers "brought" to us by God but we'd still be "alone", right?) Was he being mocked?
In your reply please also consider the implication that once a "helper" had been "found", that 'one' would become Adam's partner/wife (Gen 2:25).
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Hi Jeff, I'm afraid I don't accept your 'literal' serpent/genealogy theory. (Please see my last post.)
But I'm interested to hear Don fill his own views out on these things.
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