Heavens are described as plural, physical, and continuous in Scripture. There are multiple heavens.
Biblical theology is best summarized as cruciform apocalypticism.
Platonism, realized eschatology, and evolutionism are the source of most historical corruptions of the apostolic witness.
Interesting Quote:
The day of the Lord is the predominant theme of the Scriptures. (pg.3)
2022-07-06 21:26 Pages 9-13
What I learned:
Proof that the Bible is divinely inspired is the overcoming of death itself. Acts 17:24-31
Martin Luther identified the “evangelical church” as those who believed in sola scriptura compared to the Roman Catholic Church who believed in traditions.
Worldview can be defined as “an interpretive framework through which or by which one makes sense out of the data of life and the world.”
Interesting Quote:
In addition, we must ask the greater question: What is the worldview of the Holy Spirit? Since God is a person, how does he view life? What intuitively seems true to him? What are his assumptions? How does he interpret existence? (13)
2022-07-07 21:24 Pages 14-22
What I learned:
Worldview components:
Metaphysics (structure of existence)
Protology (study of origins)
Eschatology (study of final things)
Soteriology (study of salvation)
Ancient Hellenism viewed reality dualistically: material versus immaterial (natural and supernatural). This is similar to Plato’s fundamental view of the universe which slowly became the playing field upon which Judeo-Christianity was played.
Jews didn’t have a Christoplatonic view of the afterlife; rather, they sought new bodies post-death for them to live in a new heavens and a new earth.
Interesting Quote:
Instead of a story line that ended in the restoration of all things and the resurrection of the body, the church began to look forward to the eternal existence of the soul in an immaterial heaven. (20)
2022-07-08 22:10 Pages 23-29
What I learned:
The Bible always refers to the heavens as plural.
The heavens are continuous where there are no clear lines of distinction between them but there are delineations between parts as Paul describes the “third heaven.” This concept also allows for ease of movement between the heavens and the earth.
It is a Neoplatonic concept that there is a singular, ethereal heaven. Scripture describe the heavens as tangible, substantial, and concrete. It is physical.
Interesting Quote:
The delineation of the heavens and the earth, however, does not imply a metaphysical split between the two, but rather a functional and governmental categorization. (24)
God dwells within creation as a human being dwells within a tent. But why does this matter? Proximity evokes pathos. (27)
2022-07-09 11:29 Pages 30-35
What I learned:
The common ancient person believed deities resided in literal and real garden-temples. Humans were created in the image of God to rule over the whole earth—starting with Eden as prototypical garden-temple.
The Garden of Eden share similarities with the eschatological temple Jerusalem:
God walked in both
Humans are commanded to serve/work and keep/guard in both
Both structures are threefold and face the east
Both are situated on a mountain
Rivers flow out of both
Precious metals and stones are used in and adorn both
Trees filled the garden and arboreal decorations adorned the temple
The Bible uses “equivocal language” concerning the nature of the cosmos so that it would be equally open to interpretation throughout time and across cultures.
Interesting Quote:
Thus the protological reality of humanity’s kingly priesthood before God is deduced from the eschatological reality. (page 31)
The heavens and the earth were created to enhance the glory of God as reflected in the creation of mankind, and consequently the two realities organically correspond to one another. (33)
2022-07-10 22:17 Pages 36-44
What I learned:
Not all Near Eastern peoples saw the world as (1) the heavens, (2) the earth, and (3) the underworld.
Socrates → Plato → The Academy → Aristotle → Ptolemy, Cassander, Alexander the Great
Hellenism (Hellenistic Age was from 323 B.C. to 30 B.C.) laid the historical foundation for the development of Western society.
Many view Greek philosophical thought as harmless or even beneficial to the Christian faith, but its liking of humanism proves implicitly deceptive of the true apostolic witness.
The divergence in a Greek and Hebrew view of the universe led to an undermining of the reality of heaven and the literal return Jesus to a new creation.
Interesting Quotes:
Those who seek reality in materiality by their senses are thus “barbarians” who live without divine inspiration. Hence, those who seek to see with their eyes are actually blind. (page 39)
Thus, anthropocentrism, or “human-centeredness,” is the defining characteristic of the entire system of thought. The starting point of Hellenistic philosophy and all subsequent Wester tradition is this: The parameters of reality are defined by human perception. (39)
I believe that it can be confidently asserted that the dominant source of heresy in the early church was Hellenistic philosophy and mythology, which were diametrically opposed to the faith and tradition of Judaism in the second-temple period. (41)
2022-07-11 22:59 Pages 45-49
What I learned:
The Scriptures are increasingly apocalyptic—meaning God is progressively revealing himself in relation to the ultimate end of history.
History is moving unilaterally toward the climactic and cataclysmic day of the Lord.
Jesus’ return is the anchor of New Testament hope.
Interesting Quotes:
I believe we must appraoch [the Scriptures] as a progressive revelation from God conerning his relations with humanity. (46)
Hence, I believe Ernst Kasemann was quite right when he famously stated, “Apocalyptic was the mother of all Christian theology.” (48)
2022-07-13 17:15 Pages 50-55
What I learned:
The purpose of the day of the Lord is the restoration of original glory.
As Eden was once paradisal, so the new earth will be following the day of the Lord.
The day of the Lord is described along royal, judicial, and economic lines.
Interesting Quote:
As such, biblical theology can safely be summarized as eschatologically restored protology. In fact, “in the beginning” categorically anticipates “in the end.” Or as Sandra Richter aptly states, “God’s original intent is his final intent.” (52)
2022-07-14 22:01 Pages 56-65
What I learned:
God will resurrect the wicked so they can pay eternally the infinite debt owed.
To analogize the Biblical worldview to a soccer field, the heaves and the earth are the players, the new heavens and new earth are the goals, and the day of the Lord is the right direction.
The day of the Lord is so significant of a historical event that history is filtered according everything that happens before and after—“this age” or “the age to come.”
Interesting Quotes:
It is therefore "the beginning and the end" (Rev 21:6; 22:13) that define biblical history and biblical theology. In the analogy of the alphabet, all of the letters ultimately find their meaning and significance in relation to the α and ω. How do you undersatnd the λ, μ, and ν, apart from the α and ω? To marginalize the α and the ω as alphabetically secondary to the “central alphabetical letters,” so to speak, throws the whole arrangement into a shambles. It is the beginning and the end that ultimately inform the whole of our existence, without which we are doomed to be “tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine” (Eph. 4:14). This is why the Bible is so protologically and eschatologically oriented. (62)
As the ultimate subject of the oracles of Scriptures and the defining event of redemptive history, the day of the Lord is thus the theological linchpin for interpreting all other biblical events and their redemptive implications. (63)
The reality of the day of the Lord inherently craetes a dichotomy of ages. (64)
2022-07-15 22:14 Pages 66-71
What I learned:
The apostles may not have know the Jewish eschatological realites were somehow being presently fulfilled or realized.
Linguistic dichotomies like “evil versus righteous”, “not seeing versus appearing”, “sojourning versus ruling”, and “world versus kingdom” are based upon the apocalyptic two-age approach to history.
Hades/Sheol is a temporary holding place before the day of judgement, while Gehenna is going to be the literal location of God’s final judgement on earth. Hades itself will be thrown into the lake of fire (Rev 20:14). Gehenna will a literal place on the new earth that will be eternally constrasted and outside of the new Jerusalem.
Interesting Quotes:
The wicked will suffer eternal death in a resurrected body. In this way, the pain, suffering, and condemnation of the wrath of God will be experienced to its fullest. (71)
Such a corporeal tormet is far more terrible than common Hellenistic notions of incoporeal, ethereal fire. (71)
The greatness of God’s severity in Gehenna is the backdrop which heightens the greatness of God’s kindness in the cross. (71)
I believe that only eternal conscious corporeal punishment does justice to both human depravity and the biblical gospel. (71)
hell
2022-07-17 16:10 Pages 72-81
What I learned:
Righteous souls are in Sheol in Old Testament, while in the New Testament they are kept in the presence of God due to the new covenant?
Hebrews 9:27-28 presents the gospel in its twofold essence concerning both Jesus’ first coming and second coming.
Hellenistic thought refined the prize of eternal life to an immaterial heavenly destiny rather than an eternal future of new earth.
Interesting Quotes:
Likewise, humanity is fundamentally delusional about the gravity of sin because it lacks a divine perspective of the value of human life. Because we are not the ones who poured our very being into creation, designing its apex in our own “image”, we have no appreciation for the incomparable worth of a human being in the sight of God and the immeasurable damage done by our sin. It is literally infinite. (72)
the theology of the Bible is best summarized as cruciform-apocalypitcism. (76)
2022-07-18 20:32 Pages 82-87
What I learned:
Monasticism and an intenseorganically birthed out of Christoplatonic theology.
Dominianistic Constantinism redefined the kingdom of God as the actualization of divine sovereignty through Christianized political and ecclesiastical structures.
Dispensationalism seeks to define God’s two plans of salvation: one material salvation for Israel and the Jews; the other for the church and the Gentiles.
Interesting Quote:
The apocalyptic vision of the day of the Lord was changed from the restoration of all things to the annihilation of materiality…the return of Jesus lost is centrality in day-to-day thought, because it became functionally equivalent to death—that is, both end in an immaterial heavenly destiny. (82)
2022-07-21 21:13 Pages 88-95
What I learned:
Harrigan criticizes Dispensationalists of accomodating a Hellenistic idea of salvation with the carnal realities of Jewish apocalypticism.
The issue with Conflationary Inaugurationalism is by saying God will do the same thing at the first coming as He will do in the second falls under the false teaching Apostle Paul quotes in 2 Thess. 2:2: those who proclaim the resurrection has already taken place. It distorts the primary focus of this age by replacing the cross with an ever-increasing actualization of divine sovereignty by means of fallen men.
All miracles and workings of the Holy Spirit points to the ultimate miracle of the renewal of all things.
Interesting Quote:
The Spirit/breath/word of God is thus the practical agent of life and creation, and in this way, “The universe was created by the word of God”(Heb. 11:3). Not only does the Spirit of God animate creation, but it also sustains creation. (93)
those who have “shared in the Holy Spirit” (Heb 6:4) in this age have a palpable knowledge of “the powers of the age to come” (v. 5). As such, all the workings of the Spirit in this age—miracles, signs, wonders, gifts, etc.—are understood in the context of protological creation and eschatological consummation (see figure 4.1). (94)
2022-07-21 21:13 Pages 96-105
What I learned:
The gifts of the Spirit are meant to be an assurance of salvation since the Holy Spirit is the down payment guaranteeing our future resurrection and the assurance of our future liberation.
The gifts of the Holy Spirit are best understood when put in light of their cessation at the resurrection since we will be able to see God fully.
God is ultimately responsible for mortality’s introduction, and in the end he is also responsible for its removal. (104-105)
Interesting Quote:
The early church galvanized its apocalyptic understanding of the Scriptures around the resurrection of Jesus and the gift of the Holy Spirit. (98) see also 1 Peter 1:3.
The gifts of the Spirit are simply temporal helps to keep faith and hope strong to the end (cf. 1 Cor. 1:8; Jude 20-21). (100)
2022-07-22 21:44 Pages 106-115
What I learned:
The Holy Spirit helps us in the weakness of our mortality in this age until the return of Jesus.
Blessings and curses in our lifetime point us to their eschatological conclusion.
The Spirit was given to confirm the testimony of Christ Crucified in light of the day of the Lord.
Interesting Quote:
The captivity of mortality in this age is designed to drive us to dependance upon God, who is the only one able to deliver and save us unto immortality. (106)
With the accomodation of Hellenistic philosophy, the fundamental Christian hope of the resurrection of the body by the Spirit of God was replaced with the eternal existence of the soul in an immaterial heaven…So Jurgen Moltmann summarizes:…the immortality of the soul displaced the resurrection of the body, and the yearning for another world became a substitute for changing this one. (115)
2022-07-25 17:37 Pages 116-125
What I learned:
The study of the Holy Spirit is called pneumatology.
Harrigan criticizes charismatics of overlooking the Holy Spirit’s role in relation to creation and the resurrection. Rather, such movements marginalize the Holy Spirit as a “second work of grace.”
Reference to head and heel in Gensis 3:14-15 portrays the imagery of a military conquest. Similar language is used as in a military context in 2 Samuel 22:38-39.
Interesting Quote:
Because humanity was constitutionally designed for existence on the earth, any hope that does not involve an idyllic carnal existence is constitutionally impossible either to understand or relate to.(116)
2022-07-26 18:31 Pages 126-131
What I learned:
Seth and Noah are the only names in the genealogy that the Bible provides commentary for, and it is done so in messianic terms.
Jesus is the son of Abraham which means he is the fulfillment of the Abrahmic covenant where all the families of the earth will be blessed.
Genesis3, Genesis12, and 2Samuel7 are the most important chapters in the Scriptures concerning messianic expectation. Psalm89 puts into light how 2 Samuel 7 was understood in the generations following David.
Interesting Quote:
The New Testament simply abounds with references and allusions to Genesis 3:15. (126) see page 126 for examples.
2022-07-29 21:46 Pages 132-141
What I learned:
The consistent use of “Messiah”, “Son of God”, and “Son of Man” together in the same passage from various people indicate a messianic expectation.
According to Luke 24:25-26, the reason why Jesus rebukes the disciples on the road to Emmaus for being slow of heart to believe was their absent expectation for the Messiah to suffer before entering his glory.
The widespread Jewish reception of the gospel from the apostles indicates the Jewish-apocalyptic context for the cruciform-messianic message was unaltered.
Hellenism distorts our messianic hope. Christ reduced to becoming a means to achieve incorporeal bliss by escaping the corruption of materiality - central to Gnostic belief.
The condemned Nicolatians in Revelation 2:6 were supposed followers of Nicolas of Antioch from Acts 6:5 who strayed from the faith.
Although monastic Christians have done much good throughout church history, monasticism distorts the gospel and deprives people of enjoying everything God has created in the context of hoping for its apocalyptic restoration.
Some bishops considered Constantine the thirteenth apostle. LOL.
Interesting Quote:
The new covenant was thus understood to be the means of inheriting the presupposed hope of eternal life. (136)
the Holy Spirit was poured out as a confirmation of the forgiveness of sins in light of the coming day of the Lord. (137)
2022-07-30 12:37 Pages 142-147
What I learned:
A weakness of Dispensationalism is it poorly differentiates the agendas for the first and second coming of Jesus Christ. If Jesus is coming again to finish his divine takeover, the cross and an anchoring hope for eternal life on the new earth no longer become the center of the gospel we preach.
We need a restoration of a biblical messianic hope.
The absence of commentary explaining the “kingdom of heaven” indicates the phrase fell in line with popular contemporary views of Judaism. It is the messianic kingdom that the Jews longed for.
Interesting Quote:
Having lost our true messianic hope, we have no real answers for a world wallowing in confusion and despair. Moreover, having put our hope in this life, we have thrown in our lot with pie-eyed world and have fallen under the curse of the apostle Paul: “If anyone has no love for the Lord, let him be accursed. Our Lord, come!” (1 Cor. 16:22). In other words, love for Christ is fundamentally expressed in messianic longing and hope, Maranatha! (144)
2022-07-31 22:39 Pages 148-155
What I learned:
We will retain ethnic distinctions in the age to come. God bound himself ethnically in the unfolding of redemptive history by revealing Himself as the God of the Jews. Redemptive history is “Israelocentric” according to John 4:22.
What makes the Jews unique in their role in God’s redemptive story is their birthright. See Exodus 4:22 and Jeremiah 31:9.
Since God determined the lands where different ethnicities settled in this age, He will do the same in the age to come. This is an accordance to His promise over Israel to inherit Canaan as an “everlasting possession.”
Interesting Quote:
God is an ethnicist…Though commonly rejected, ignored, or overlooked, this is a plain fact of the Bible, and the de-ethnicization of the Scriptures borders on hermeneutical schizophrenia. (152)
Gentiles often disregard of conflate ethnicity when studying redemptive history because they feel somehow slighted, as though they are less loved by God or will not receive equitably from God in the inheritance to come…However, primogeniture is simply a governmental and legal administrative mechanism, devoid of partiality or favoritism. (155)
2022-08-01 21:51 Pages 156-165
What I learned:
Galatians 3:28 and Colossians 3:11 do not contradict the fact that God is ethnicist since these verses have to do with quality of salvation and unity of faith. Children of the same family are fellow heirs but can have different roles.
The House of Shammai did not welcome Gentile proselytes nor accepted that they could participate in salvation.
The universal laws of God were later termed the “Noahide Laws” since they were applied to all of Noah’s sons.
Interesting Quote:
That is, the center of the new earth will be the New Jerusalem. God will administrate the restoration of all things through the Messiah reigning on Mount Zion as King of Israel, reigning over all the nations. (164)
2022-08-02 22:26 Pages 166-
What I learned:
Jewish believers in the early church would have read interpreted John’s vision without being confused in prophecies concerning the New Jerusalem.
Harrigan critcizes Augustine’s view of Israels’ occupation of Canaan and Jerusalem as merely typological.
Levitivus 25 illustrates God as the owner off the land and us as tenants/stewards.
The temple in Jerusalem was understood to be God’s footstool and was the sign of His present sovereignty and governance over creation.
Ezekiel 37:25-28 sets a straightforward theology of Israel’s election in terms of the age to come.
References to the temple in the New Testament were positive, reinforcing its divinely ordained place in redemptive history. Significant messianic events occured in the temple: Zechariah saw his visionSimeon waited for the Messiah, Anna did not cease praying and fasting, and Jesus spent his boyhood there.
Satan’s temptations to Jesus atop the temple were not rejected for the proposed blessings but for the timing and presumption of messianic anointing.
Jesus’ pronounced judgement on the temple was not to abrogate or annul the temple. Rather, it reflects temporal discipline upon rebellion and hardness of heart.
Paul was not supersessionist. He revered the temple. It was the locus of most of his ministry.
Interesting Quote:
Jerusalem’s destiny in the age to come informs our prayers in this age. (166)
Though interpreting [Romans 9:4]…is difficult, its most straightforward readings implies that Jews are entrusted with a unique birthright established by the covenants unto an apocalyptic glory. Moreover, their calling in this age involves the stewardship of the oracles (“promises”), which include the land, law, and templ (“worship”). (170)