… So I see the mark as the antithesis of the seal of God. It is the mark of final reprobation, and in the middle of the week when all restraint is removed, something appears to happen where those that are particularly set against God and His covenant will be utterly given over to the manifestation of sin in the flesh, so that what has happened with the Antichrist is also being released in those that share spiritual union with him. Impulses once only conceived and restrained by government or conscience will now have unhindered expression in the demonic rage against the people of the covenant, both church and Israel. It is part of God’s plan that evil be revealed in the flesh for its exposure that it might be condemned in the flesh. My wife, Connie, suggested to me, and I agree, that it has something to do with God’s intention to educate the universe of angels and humanity through the demonstration that is wrought out in history. …

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… If we understand this birth and ascent to have a particular application to the events that begin the unequaled tribulation, then it follows that this intends a perfecting of the church’s faith in preparation for the final conflict. It is not a change of spatial location, but a deeper apprehension and appropriation of the gospel. It is a revelatory event that comes at the end of a travail that has broken the power of self-reliance in the church in analogy to the removal of Jacob’s strength at the end of his travail (Deut 32:36 with Dan 12:7). The ‘rapture’ of the man child signifies the church’s advance triumph over the veil that obscures the gospel from Israel and the nations (Isa 25:7; 2Cor 3:16). This is true of the church of all time, but it will be profoundly apprehended at the end of the travail that precipitates the final tribulation. …

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… So we fully affirm that a rapture will occur, but not as it is being taught. Those that teach that the rapture is BEFORE the tribulation (called the “pre-tribulational view. ‘Pre’ means before) see it as escape and exemption from the last persecution, which they confuse with the wrath of God, and point out that believers are not ‘appointed to wrath’ (1Thes 5:9). There is, of course, a clear distinction between tribulation and divine wrath. There is a clear distinction throughout the book of Revelation between the saints endure the wrath of man and those that are called ‘earth dwellers’ that experience the wrath of God. Manifestly, there are many saints in the tribulation period that are not “appointed to wrath,” but this exemption does not require physical removal from the scene (Lk 21:18; Rev 7:3; 12:6). …

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[...] So the phenomena associated with the sixth seal takes us to the day of the Lord, which is at the end of the tribulation, whereas the activity of Dan 8:10 starts at the beginning and continues through the tribulation. It is not incorrect to see the relation of the casting down of the stars as a physical sign that the proud powers of the air are now being dethroned, but I would not let the language concerning the displacement of the stars hinder from understanding the passage to refer to physical phenomena as it will “appear” from our perspective. I think what we are seeing in these references are the visual effects of an all out nuclear war. There are many passages that more than suggest that this is taking place when the Lord returns to “destroy those that are destroying the earth” [...]

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[...] Note that Jesus places the stellar upheaval and eclipse immediately AFTER the tribulation, whereas Joel’s prophecy shows this as happening BEFORE the great and notable ‘day of the Lord’. How then can the day of the Lord be held to include the tribulation if the darkness that comes BEFORE the day of the Lord is said by Jesus to come ‘immediately AFTER’ the tribulation? It simply cannot be done; scripture doesn’t permit it. But it must be done if pre-tribulationism is to survive. [...]

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[...] Yes, the ‘prince that shall come’ is indeed the ‘little horn’ that comes out of the fourth beast of Dan 7. But the same ‘litte horn’ (and I must insist that he is indeed the same on solid exegetical evidence) comes “no less” out of a division of the third kingdom (see 8:9). So I think it is a mistake to overly emphasize the ‘territorial’ aspects of the successive beast kingdoms, but to see rather the more generic, ‘organic’ nature of their relation. Notice that the kingdoms are not represented as ceasing to exist, but each lives on in its successor, so that at the end, all are destroyed at once as all existing at once. That’s what the language of the passages seem to represent. The kingdoms are viewed as unit, the beast-like kingdom of man. They are distinguished and identified according to their impingement on fate and fortunes of Israel as usurpers of the theocratic kingdom of David (Dan 2:44). I see them in a more ‘organic’ relation to the doctrine of the principalities and powers in chapter ten, the real ‘powers’ behind the kingdoms of this present evil age, and their defeat as the real issue of Israel’s restoration. But even on territorial grounds, Rome certainly included most of the eastern Arab lands that could produce a figure that could marshal the Islamic world against Israel. So I see Titus and the 70AD destruction of the temple and city as only a pre-typical fulfillment of a yet future destruction of city and sanctuary by the actual contemporary people of the Antichrist. [...]

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[...] I’ve never studied the matter closely, probably because I can’t see where it would make a lot of difference. Sure, it’s a ‘make or break’ for preterism. They absolutely MUST defend the early date with all their might, and you know the power of a subjective interest. But that is only because they are content with a hodge podge of inconsistent exegesis. For example, if we make Nero the Beast, then how can we NOT make him Paul’s man of sin, which is obviously Daniel’s ‘willful king’ (11:36) ‘little horn’ (7:21) and beast (7:11)? Since this figure is clearly destroyed at no time short of Christ’s return (whether mystically or literally conceived), then you have a real problem, because Nero meets his ‘apocalyptic’ demise quite some time before Jerusalem is destroyed by Titus, (the other so-called return of Christ in ‘mystical’ apocalyptic judgment) some years later. So what’s wrong with this picture? Exegetically everything! The Beast is slain and the millennium of the martyred souls is believed to begin with the death of the Nero, the Beast, some years before the siege and fall of Jerusalem. It’s silly. In the real world of biblical exegesis, the brief tenure of the Beast’s career coincides with the final desolations of Jerusalem as perfectly concurrent . So early dating John’s Apocalypse assists nothing for the preterist’s cause. I have no problem with an earlier date, because I have no problem that the book might have had a very beneficial early circulation, bracing both Roman Christians in the north of the empire and Jewish Christians in the south for two very horrific but distinct periods of tribulation, both having much of the essence of the final tribulation that closes this age with the “actual’ return of Christ. [...]

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[...] Could it be that this is a clue that the sealed remnant represents a heavenly spiritual corporate entity/ or company that anticipates, as first-fruits, not only the literal gathering of Israel at Christ’s return, but the perfection in love of an overcoming church that “loves not its life unto death according to Rev 12? That is, this is the first fruits of covenant fulfillment, not only of millennial Israel, but also, and even more particularly, this is the eschatological forerunners of the glorious church of Christ as it is about to be perfected through the sufferings of the final test (Rev 3:10). These are free from sensual entanglements, as Samson the Danite was not, and these are free from idolatry, as the tribe that was particularly prone to idolatry was not, and these are vigilant and set for the defense of the gospel, not as Dan that was slack and negligent concerning its duty to participate in the defense of their brethren. They were not their brother’s keeper. But these, in complete contrast of the compromised tribe of Dan, are perfect in their love and faithful unto death. Though hunted, persecuted, even killed, paradoxically, not a hair of their head will perish. They are sealed; already ascended far above the access of principalities and powers, because their faith has found an unshakable resting place. I take this in complete keeping with the eschatological birthing of the man-child (Rev 12), a key to which is Paul’s remark concerning the relationship of travail to the “formation of Christ” in his wavering believers. See what I mean? These are those in whom Christ has been formed to such a degree as to manifest Him in the flesh through their faith and love unto death. [...]

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[...] That has always been our position that God is jealous that His sovereign choice and the sole and unmixed work of His Spirit be mediated through jars of clay. It is on the one hand all Him and nothing of man, but on the other hand, this wholly divine working is mediated through a people bearing His nature, so that “it is not I that does the work” (Jn 14:10; 5:19 see also Paul’s repeated ‘yet not I’s') but “my Father is working and I work.” It’s the mystery of incarnation of the divine nature in the saints; it is the one in, and through the many, the old dialectic of paradox and mystery that has always stumbled humanism and works religion. This is why God is jealous that this be mediated through a “son of man” company that is in fact the overcoming church, and why the church must, of course, be here to complete the testimony AS the church. This waits on the fullness of revelation, but God is very jealous for the process by which such age-ending revelation comes about, but that’s another topic. Thank you for sending this. It casts a grammatical light on a choice of truth. How we interpret, and what we see in such things is also a reflection on how we are inclined. There is always a choice that reveals the disposition of the heart, even in the interpretation process, regardless of tools, resources, or training. I’m glad you’ve got such a ‘bead drawn’ on these things. [...]

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