It is the first century. Some members of your trade guild have convinced you that instead of there being many gods, there is one, and his name is Christ. You were baptized into Christ's name during a period of relative peace, but now everything has changed. Instead of enjoying prosperity, your friends are being carted off to jail, and it looks as if things are only going to get worse. If God were to add one more book to the Scriptures for your sake, what kind of book would you need?
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1 [ Back ] This word "forefathers" is used by Moses himself in referring to the land promise before the Sinaitic covenant was ratified (Exodus 12:5). It is therefore most naturally applied to the promise made first to Abraham, then to his descendants, not to a promise to Moses.
2 [ Back ] In addition to being able to cite Scripture's claim that the land promise was fulfilled, we could, in fact, document the fulfillment of each element of the promise if it were necessary. Check the NIV Study Bible's center column references for Genesis 15:18-21. For an illustration of this territory, see map 5, Kingdom of David and Solomon in the NIV Study Bible. This map shows Israel extending from the Wadi of Egypt to the Euphrates, with colorcoding to show which kingdom had conquered which territory according to Scripture.
3 [ Back ] I have given the mere outline of this argument which is comprehensively by Arthur H. Lewis in The Dark Side of the Millennium: The Problem of Evil in Revelation 20:1-10 (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1980).
Rick Ritchie resides in Southern California and is a long-time contributor to Modern Reformation. He is a graduate of Christ College Irvine and Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary.
Issue: "Eschatology" May/June 1994 Vol. 3 No. 3 Page number(s): 10-13
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