Is This The Pale Horse of Revelation?

Article “Is Revelation 6 a Prophecy About Today’s Pandemic and Other Apocalyptic-Like Events?” by Gary DeMar (source – https://americanvision.org/22538/is-revelation-6-a-prophecy-about-todays-pandemic-and-other-apocalyptic-like-events/)

Some prophecy writers are claiming that Revelation 6 depicts what’s taking place today with earthquakes (one just hit Utah) and pestilence or plagues. Is the Coronavirus a fulfillment of Revelation 6:8?:

I looked, and behold, an ashen horse; and he who sat on it had the name Death; and Hades was following with him. Authority was given to them over a fourth of the earth, “to kill with sword and with famine and with pestilence [θανάτῳ] and by the wild beasts of the earth.”

The Greek word translated “pestilence” is θανάτῳ (thanatō) and is translated elsewhere as “death.” The rider of the horse is named θανάτῳ, the same word translated as “pestilence” in some translations.

Similar language is used in Jeremiah 15:2–3 for a local judgment against Jerusalem (15:4–14). The same is true in Jeremiah 24, especially verse 10, where a different Hebrew word is used and is translated as “pestilence” and not just “death.”

The more accurate translation in Revelation 6:8 is “death” that would include pestilence and other effects of war and famine. “The story of Mary of Bethezuba is a story of cannibalism told by Josephus in his Jewish War (VI,193) which occurred as a consequence of famine and starvation during the siege of Jerusalem in August AD 70 by Roman legions commanded by Titus. The tale is only one account of the horrors suffered at Jerusalem in the summer of 70. “

In Luke 21:11, the Greek word λοιμοὶ (loimoi) is used and is translated as “plagues,” the only time the word is used in the New Testament. As I have mentioned in a previous article, pestilences and plagues are not unusual. They can be found in the Old Testament, secular history, and the era leading up to Jerusalem’s judgment in AD 70. For example, the Roman historian Suetonius wrote that there was such a “pestilence” at Rome during the reign of Nero that “within the space of one autumn there died no less than thirty thousand persons, as appeared from the registers in the temple of Libitina.” [1]

Wars and rumors of wars, famines, plagues, and earthquakes. These are the biblical signs. All of them are realities of planet earth each days. Is Jesus coming back soon? Did Jesus provide an exact, predictable scenario as so many modern prophecy writers advocate?Buy Now

Now we come to the meaning of Revelation 6. What’s going on in this chapter? James M. Hamilton, Jr., a premillennialist, writes that “the opening of the seals in Revelation 6 corresponds to what Jesus describes in the Olivet Discourse in the Synoptic Gospels.” [2] I agree. See my books Is Jesus Coming Soon?Last Days Madness, and Wars and Rumors of Wars.

The following chart is from Hamilton’s commentary on Revelation:

If the Olivet Discourse is describing events leading up to and including the destruction of Jerusalem that took place within a generation (Matt. 24:34), then Revelation must be given a similar interpretation. Consider how stellar phenomena are depicted.

A verse-by-verse study of the Olivet Discourse in Matthew 24 that puts it into its biblical and historical context.Buy Now

In Revelation 6:13­–14, we read, “the stars of the sky fell to the earth, as a fig tree casts its unripe figs when shaken by a great wind. The sky was split apart like a scroll when it is rolled up, and every mountain and island were moved out of their places.” This passage is a partial citation from Isaiah 34:4 using the Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament, the Septuagint (LXX), which reads, “all the stars shall fall.” [3]

If this is a description of physical stars, there would be an immediate end to the earth, and yet we find the earth still intact in Revelation 8:10 where “a great star fell from heaven.” If one star hit the earth, the earth would be vaporized in an instant. In fact, if a star like our sun gets close to earth, the earth would burn up before it hit. How could the earth survive if a “third of the stars of heaven” had been thrown down to the earth (Rev. 12:4)?

Then there’s the description of the male goat in Daniel 8:10 that causes “stars to fall to the earth,” an action that would destroy the earth if Daniel was describing actual physical stars. These fallen stars are then “trampled” by the horn of a goat. It must have been a mighty big goat horn, similar in size to the giant woman in Revelation who was “clothed with the sun,” stood on the moon, and had a “crown of twelve stars” on her head (Rev. 12:1). Most likely the horn refers to a civil ruler and the stars represent civil or religious authorities [4] under the ruler’s dominion.

Jesus is using language that was understood by the people of His day. The Hebrew Scriptures are filled with similar symbolic “sign” (Rev. 1:1) language. There is dramatic end-of-the-world language in Zephaniah that is directed at Jerusalem and Israel (Zeph. 1). John Lightfoot makes the point that seemingly end-of-the-world language is a common feature in the Bible and most often points to the end of the social, religious, and political status of a nation:

The opening of the sixth Seal [in Rev. 6:12–13] shows the destruction itself in those borrowed terms that the Scripture uses to express it by, namely as if it were the destruction of the whole world: as Matt. 24:29–30. The Sun darkened, the Stars falling, the Heaven departing and the Earth dissolved, and that conclusion [of] ver. 16 [in Rev. 6]. They shall say to the rocks fall on us, &c. doth not only warrant, but even enforce us to understand and construe these things in the sense that we do: for Christ applies these very words to the very same thing (Luke 23:30). And here is another, and, to me, a very satisfactory reason, why to place the showing of these visions to John, and his writing of this Book [of Revelation] before the desolation of Jerusalem. [5]

For many Christians, interpreting Bible prophecy is a complicated task. As a result, they often turn to so-called Bible experts and complicated charts that include gaps in time, outrageous literal interpretations, and numerous claims that current events are prime indicators that the end is near. Many Christians are unaware that the same Bible passages have been used in nearly every generation as “proof” that the end or some aspect of the end (the “rapture”) would take place in their generation.Buy Now

When was this judgment to take place? Jesus had His present audience in view as He made His way to the cross:

“Daughters of Jerusalem, stop weeping for Me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. For behold, the days are coming when they will say, ‘Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bore, and the breasts that never nursed’ [Matt. 24:19Luke 21:23]. Then they will begin TO SAY TO THE MOUNTAINS, ‘FALL ON US,’ AND TO THE HILLS, ‘COVER US’ [Isa. 2:19–20Hos. 10:8Rev. 6:16] For if they do these things when the tree is green, what will happen when it is dry?” (Luke 23:28–31).

When was the tree dry and without fruit? The last days of the generation that was confronted from the judgment sequence prophesied by Jesus.

Even though this virus is not an end-of-the-world sign or event, it should get our attention that we are mortal and almost any unforeseen event could lay us low and even kill us. Eternity is but a heartbeat away.

  1. C. Suetonius Tranquillus, The Lives of the Twelve Caesars: Nero, 39.[]
  2. Hamilton, An Interview with Dr. James Hamilton. For further discussion of this point, see James M. Hamilton, Jr., Revelation: The Spirit Speaks to the Churches (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2012), 166–167. Also, Louis A. Vos, The Synoptic Traditions in the Apocalypse (Kampen, Netherlands: J.H. Kok N. V., 1965), 181–188.[]
  3. J. Richard Middleton, A New Heaven and a New Earth: Reclaiming Biblical eschatology (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2014), 179–210.[]
  4. James B. Jordan, The Handwriting on the Wall: A Commentary on the Book of Daniel, 2nd ed. (Powder Springs, GA: American Vision Press, 2007), 426–436.[]
  5. John Lightfoot, The Whole Works of the Rev. John Lightfoot Containing “The Harmony, Chronicle and Order of the New Testament,” ed. John Rogers Pitman, 13 vols. (London: [1655] 1823), 3:337.[]

Scoffers in the Last Days?

Article: Is the Dissolution of the Heavens and Earth on the Horizon? by Gary DeMar – source https://americanvision.org/22532/is-the-dissolution-of-the-heavens-and-earth-on-the-horizon/

If there’s one passage of Scripture that is repeatedly brought up as an indictment against people who object to modern-day prophetic speculation it is 2 Peter 3:3–18. If you dispute with those who argue that all the signs around us indicate that we are living in the “last days,” then you are labeled a “scoffer” or a “mocker” (2 Peter 3:3Jude 18). If this is how the passage is to be understood, then how should Bible students who argued against similar prophetic speculation during the two World Wars and previous periods of social, civil, and moral unrest going back centuries be evaluated? Those who questioned the prophecy speculators were correct in their skepticism that they were not living in the last days!

Every generation has had people who claimed the end was near and others who argued that the end was not near. Appealing to contemporary signs to make predictions of a near end of all things has a long history as Francis X. Gumerlock demonstrates in his book The Day and the Hour. One would think that by now Christians would stop doing it. But they don’t. They know revving people up over the “last days” sells books . . . lots of books.

The people Peter and Jude accuse of being “scoffers” were enemies of Jesus and the gospel and were alive when Peter and Jude wrote their letters. They scoffed at the claims made by Jesus that the temple would be destroyed (Matt. 24:2) and Jesus Himself would be the person to make it happen before their generation passed away (Matt. 24:3421:18-4622:1-14). Since nearly 40 years—a generation—had passed since Jesus had prophesied about the impending destruction, and the temple was still standing with no indication that it would be destroyed in their lifetime, the scoffers began to mock the words of Jesus. “Where’s the sign of His coming? Your Jesus predicted it with certainty, and it has not come to pass. All is as it has been. Based on the Law of Moses, this Jesus was a false prophet” (see Deut. 18:22).

A similar situation happened regarding the prophecies related to Judah’s captivity in Babylon. Consider the following from 2 Chronicles 36 and compared it to Jesus’ description of the destruction of Jerusalem that was prophesied by Him in the Olivet Discourse in the Synoptic Gospels:

Furthermore, all the officials of the priests and the people were very unfaithful following all the abominations of the nations; and they defiled the house of the Lord which He had sanctified in Jerusalem. The Lord, the God of their fathers, sent word to them again and again by His messengers, because He had compassion on His people and on His dwelling place; but they continually mocked the messengers of God, despised His words and scoffed at His prophets, until the wrath of the Lord arose against His people, until there was no remedy. Therefore He brought up against them the king of the Chaldeans who slew their young men with the sword in the house of their sanctuary, and had no compassion on young man or virgin, old man or infirm; He gave them all into his hand. All the articles of the house of God, great and small, and the treasures of the house of the Lord, and the treasures of the king and of his officers, he brought them all to Babylon. Then they burned the house of God and broke down the wall of Jerusalem and burned all its fortified buildings with fire and destroyed all its valuable articles. Those who had escaped from the sword he carried away to Babylon; and they were servants to him and to his sons until the rule of the kingdom of Persia, to fulfill the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed its Sabbaths. All the days of its desolation it kept sabbath until seventy years were complete” (vv. 14-21).

There’s a big difference between a “scoffer” who rejects God’s word outright and someone who argues for an alternative position using sound biblical arguments. A person who disagrees with modern-day prophetic speculation is not a “scoffer,” especially when there have been so many failed attempts at predicting the certainty of the end over the years.

One could just as easily make the case that modern-day prophetic speculators are “scoffers” and “mockers” because they twist and distort Jesus’ clear words that He would return in judgment before that first-century generation passed away (Matt. 24:34Mark 13:30Luke 21:32). Some of today’s prophecy speculators try to argue that the Greek word genea—best translated as “generation” (Matt. 1:17)—can be translated “race” or “nation.” When that doesn’t work, some argue that “this generation” (the generation of Jesus’ day: e.g., Matt. 12:41–4223:36), should be translated “that generation” (a future generation). For example, Henry Morris, who insisted that the Bible should be interpreted literally on issues related to creation, does not take the same approach when he interprets the Olivet Discourse prophecy:

The word “this” [in Matt. 24:34] is the demonstrative adjective and could better be translated “that generation.” That is, the generation which sees all these signs (probably starting with World War I) shall not have completely died away until all these things have taken place. [1] That is, that generation—the one that sees the specific signs of His coming—will not completely pass away until He has returned to reign as King. [2] Now if the first sign was, as we have surmised, the First World War, then followed by all His other signs, His coming must indeed by very near [3]—even at the doors! There are only a few people still living from that [4] generation. I myself was born just a month before the Armistice was signed on November 11, 1918. Those who were old enough really to know about that First World War—“the beginning of sorrows”—would be at least in their eighties now. Thus, we cannot be dogmatic, we could very well now be living in the very last days before the return of the Lord. [5]

When Jesus’ clear words don’t suit their prophetic paradigm, words are removed, new words added, and Greek words redefined. “This generation” becomes, “the generation that sees these signs,” as if Jesus was addressing a generation other than the one to whom He was speaking. Jesus made it clear that His present audience (“you”) would “see all these things” (Matt. 24:33).

Second Peter 3 links “scoffers” (v. 3 in KJV; “mockers” in NASB) with “the last days” (v. 3), “the promise of His coming” (v. 4), the “day of the Lord” (v. 10), and the passing away of the “heavens” and the “earth” (v. 10). “Last days” is not code for events leading up either to an event called the “rapture of the church” or a future second coming. Gordon Clark comments:

“The last days,” which so many people think refers to what is still future at the end of this age, clearly means the time of Peter himself. I John 2:18 says it is, in his day, the last hourActs 2:17 quoted Joel as predicting the last days as the lifetime of Peter…. Peter obviously means his own time. [6]

There are other passages like Hebrews 1:1–2 (note the use of the plural near demonstrative: “in these last days”), Hebrews 9:26 (note the use of “now”), “as you see the day drawing near” (10:25; also 1 John 2:18), 1 Corinthians 10:11 (“upon whom the ends of the ages have come”), and James 5:3 (the storing up of their treasure was in “the last days” not “for” the last days). The question is, the last days of what?: the last days of the old covenant with its stone temple, blood sacrifices, and earthly sinful priesthood, the theme of the book of Hebrews. It’s not only the end of the Abrahamic and Mosaic covenants.

Twice in the New Testament an explicit comparison is made between Jesus and Adam. In Romans 5:12–21, Paul argues that ‘just as through the disobedience of the one man [Adam] the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man [Jesus] the many will be made righteous” (Romans 5:19NIV). In 1 Corinthians 15:22, Paul argues that ‘as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive,’ while in verse 45 he calls Jesus the ‘last/ultimate/final [ἔσχατος/eschatos] Adam.’”

Given that most Christians who make the “scoffer” charge are premillennial, that is, those who believe that after a future seven-year period that includes the Great Tribulation, a thousand-year reign of Jesus on the earth will immediately follow. It’s only after this 1007-year period (the 7-year tribulation period plus the 1000 years of Revelation 20) that the events described in 2 Peter 3 come to pass (the new heaven and new earth). According to the dispensational view, the “new heaven and a new earth” comes into existence after the first physical heaven and the first physical earth passes away (Rev. 21:1). Given premillennial assumptions (which I believe are wrong), this means that the events described by Peter could never be near since more than 1000 years is not near.

How can a person be a “scoffer” or a “mocker” of prophetic events that are about to happen when the supposed dissolution of the cosmos is more than a thousand years away? It doesn’t make any sense. The charge only makes sense if the described events are actually near, near to those living in Peter’s generation and were familiar with Jesus’ prophecy. Those in Peter’s audience were looking “for these things” (2 Peter 3:12). How could they be looking for “these things” if they were at least 1007 years in their future?

Why didn’t Peter say that their math was out of whack, that the “new heaven and the new earth” are more than 1000 years in the future. According to the dispensational way of interpreting prophecy, we have at least 1000 years before there will be a physically renovated cosmos. This can’t take place until after Jesus reigns on the earth for 1000 years.

In fact, once Jesus sets foot on planet earth again, according to premillennialism, it will be quite easy to calculate when the events of 2 Peter 3 will take place—exactly a thousand years later. To silence a “scoffer,” all a person has to say is, “Look, God promised that these events won’t happen for a thousand years.” This means that for the premillennialist, the events revealed and described by Peter can’t have anything to do with our time. They are still far in the future. This means that this section of Scripture can’t be used to club those who reject the notion that we are living in the last days.

Peter specifically says, once again following the premillennial paradigm, the last days are at this moment in time at least 1007 years in the future. So, if the “last days” refers to the period just before the dissolution of the cosmos that is at least 1007 years in our future, then we can’t be living in the “last days” and there are no signs that can be called into evidence to support the claim that a new physical heaven and earth are on the prophetic horizon.

  1. Henry M. Morris, The Defender’s Study Bible (Grand Rapids, MI: World Publishing, 1995), 1045.)

Prior to these comments that are found in his Defender’s Study Bible, Morris wrote the following extended comments on Matthew 24:34 in his book Creation and the Second Coming:

In this striking prophecy, the words “this generation” have the emphasis of “that generation.” ((I received the following comment in an email from someone supporting the view held by Morris: “I will admit that the word ‘this’ has ALWAYS presented an obstacle to a full understanding of the Discourse. Have you ever considered [if] this word COULD HAVE BEEN ‘that’ in the original [Manuscript]? I believe from my reading that could have been possible” (November 12, 2007). Almost anything is possible, but there is no indication that the Greek word ekeinos (“that”) was ever used. It’s pure conjecture.[]

  1. There is nothing in Matthew 24 that says Jesus is going to return to reign as king on the earth.[]
  2. Why does “near” mean “even at the doors” for Morris in his day, but it did not mean “near” in the first century?[]
  3. Notice how Morris uses the far demonstrative “that” to refer to a generation in the past. How would he have described the generation in which he was living? Obviously with the near demonstrative “this” to distinguish it from “that” past generation.[]
  4. Henry Morris, Creation and the Second Coming (Green Forest, AR: Master Books, 1991), 183. Morris died on February 25, 2006 at the age of 87.[]
  5. Gordon H. Clark, II Peter: A Short Commentary (Nutley, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1975), 64.

Can The Pre-Trib View Be Found Before the 19th Century?

by Gary DeMar (original source here: https://americanvision.org/22451/is-the-pre-tribulation-rapture-found-before-the-19th-century/)

I’ve been corresponding with some dispensationalists on Facebook on the topic of the rapture. There are several people who claim that dispensationalism, mostly the pretrib rapture, has some historical precedent before John Nelson Darby.

I don’t have enough access to historical sources to do the necessary research, so I am dependent on what other dispensationalists put forth as evidence. For example, I found “Pretribulation Rapture Taught by Early Church” by  J.R. Church interesting:

In 1844, a bound volume of New Testament books was found in an excavation at the Saint Catherine monastery located near the foot of Mount Sinai. It is called the Sinaiticus. It contains all 27 New Testament Books, plus two others—the Epistle of Barnabas and the Shepherd of Hermes [Hermas].

In the Shepherd of Hermes [Hermas],the author relates a vision. He said, “I saw a huge beast [1] [corresponding to the beast of Revelation 13]. [2] The beast has four colors [corresponding to the colors of the four horsemen of Revelation 6]. It is 100 feet long. But I escaped, thanks to the grace and power of God.”

Then he meets a virgin dressed in white who says, “Thou hast escaped a great tribulation because thou hast believed and at the sight of such a huge beast, have not doubted. Go therefore and declare to the elect of the Lord His mighty deeds and say to them that this beast is a type of the Great Tribulation which is to come. If you, therefore, prepare yourselves and with your whole heart turn to the Lord in repentance, then you shall be able to escape it.”

Regardless of the stylized circumstances related in his reported vision, Hermes, nevertheless, taught a pretribulation rapture.

It’s important not to ignore “the stylized circumstances related in his reported vision.” Hermas does not argue from the biblical text. It’s based on a vision, and a weird one at that.

There are a number of ways to escape tribulation.

Notice this line from the vision that Church does not quote: “ye shall be able to escape it, if your heart be made pure and without blemish, and if for the remaining days of your life ye serve the Lord blamelessly. Cast your cares upon the Lord and He will set them straight.” There is no rapture. Hermas can escape it by being faithful for the remaining days of his life.

Richard Buckham’s offers the following commentary:

The beast is explained in xxiii. 5 as a figure (τυπος) of the imminent great tribulation. To the threat of this tribulation Christians may react in two different ways: their faith may waver (doublemindedness) (xxiii. 4) or they may repent and prepare themselves to face it (xxiii. 5). The doubleminded will be “hurt” (xxiii. 4) by the great tribulation and thereby experience God’s wrath (xxiii. 6). The repentant, on the other hand, will put complete trust in the Lord (xxiii. 4 f.), face the tribulation with courage (xxiii. 8), and “escape” (xxiii. 4). (Richard Bauckham, “The Great Tribulation in The Shepherd Of Hermas,” Journal of Theological Studies 25 (1974), 31.))

Church is importing his pretrib rapture theory into the word “escape.” Does “escape” mean being taken off the earth to avoid tribulation? To escape the tribulation in the lead up to the destruction of Jerusalem that took place in AD 70, all a person had to do is head to the hills on foot (Matt. 24:16–20). In Luke’s version, Jesus said the following:

But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, you will know that her desolation is near. Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains, let those in the city get out, and let those in the country stay out of the city. For these are the days of vengeance, to fulfill all that is written. How miserable those days will be for pregnant and nursing mothers! For there will be great distress upon the land and wrath against this people. They will fall by the edge of the sword and be led captive into all the nations. And Jerusalem will be trodden down by the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled (21:20–24).

Those who heeded Jesus’ warning escaped the tribulation without ever leaving earth.

Lot and his daughters escaped God’s wrath by fleeing to the mountains: “When they [angels] had brought them outside, one said, ‘Escape for your life! Do not look behind you, and do not stay anywhere in the valley; escape to the mountains, or you will be swept away’” (Gen. 19:17).

The Israelites escaped the plagues brought on Egypt; Rahab escaped the judgment on Jericho; Daniel’s three friends were protected in the fiery furnace; Daniel was spared in the lion’s den; Joseph, Mary, and Jesus escaped from the horror of Herod’s slaughter of the children.

Thomas Ice confronted me after our debate at BIOLA (February 2002) about Francis X. Gumerlock’s statement in his book The Day and the Hour (2000), a book published by American Vision and edited by me, that “The Dolcinites held to a pre-tribulation rapture theory similar to that of modern dispensationalism” [3].

If Ice and other dispensationalists want to claim the Dolcinites as proto-dispensationalists, they can have them. According to Gumerlock, Brother Dolcino and his followers “believed that they were the only true church of the latter days…. Believing they were living in the last three and a half years of End-time tribulation, Dolcino and his followers, motivated by certain Bible passages, fled ‘Babylon’ for the mountains of Piedmont. In the mountains they armed themselves for conflict with the papal forces of Clement V, in 1307 a bloodbath ensued in which four hundred of them were killed. Dolcino was burned at the stake.” [4].

Fra Dolcino (c. 1250 – 1307)

If Dolcino believed in a pre-trib rapture, why would he and his followers escape to the mountains and arm themselves?

As far as I can tell, Dolcino does not make a biblical argument for his views.

There are more problems with using Dolcino’s views to support a pre-trib rapture. The fourteenth-century text, The History of Brother Dolcino, “was composed in 1316 by an anonymous source,” [5] meaning that this text was not written by Dolcino. The original letters of Dolcino are not in existence.

Dolcino and his Apostolic Brethren were a violent cult hell bent on the purification of the Roman Catholic Church through violence that ended in their destruction. [6]

Dolcino justified the actions of his followers by appealing to Titus 1:15: “To the pure all things are pure, but to the corrupt and unbelieving nothing is pure; their very minds and consciences are corrupted.”  “As reported by the Anonymous Synchronous, Dolcino maintained “[…] that it was legitimate for him and his followers to hang, behead, […] people who obey … the Roman church and burn down, destroy, […] because they were acting to redeem them and thus without sin.”

[H]e was considered by some to be one of the reformers of the Church and one of the founders of the ideals of the French revolution and socialism. In particular he was positively reevaluated toward the end of the 19th century and was dubbed the Apostle of the Socialist Jesus….

Gumerlock quotes the Historia Fratris Dolcini Haeresiarchae in an end note (the English translation is Gumerlock’s):

Again, [he believed, preached, and taught] that within the said three years Dolcino himself and his followers will preach the coming of the Antichrist; and that the Antichrist himself would come into this world at the end of the said three and a half years; and after he had come, Dolcino himself, and his followers would be transferred into Paradise, where Enoch and Elijah are, and they will be preserved unharmed from the persecution of Antichrist; and then Enoch and Elijah themselves would descend to earth to confront the Antichrist, then they would be killed by him; or by his servants, and thus Antichrist would reign again for many days. “Once Antichrist is truly dead, Dolcino himself, who would then be the holy Pope, and his preserved followers will descend to earth, and they will preach the correct faith of Christ to all, and they will convert those, who will be alive then, to the true faith of Jesus Christ” (91–92).

Even after all that we know of Dolcino and his cult, Thomas Ice still wants to claim him as someone who taught a pre-trib rapture before Darby.

This is typical of dispensationalists who will enter almost any source into evidence if it can be used to prop up their system.

  1. “from its mouth fiery locusts issued forth”[]
  2. Hermas does not mention Rev. 13.[]
  3. Day and the Hour, 80[]
  4. Day and the Hour, 80[]
  5. James F. Stitzinger, “The Rapture in Twenty Centuries of Biblical Interpretation,” TMSJ 13/2 (Fall 2002), 159. See Francis X. Gumerlock, “A Rapture Citation in the Fourteenth Century,” Bibliotheca Sacra 159 (July-September 2002), 354–355.[]
  6. Gian Luca Potesta, “Radical Apocalyptic Movements in the Late Middle Ages,” The Continuum History of Apocalypticism, eds. Bernard McGinn, John J. Collins, and Stephen J. Stein (New York: Continuum, 2003), 300–302.[]


What Sola Scriptura Means

Justin Taylor: https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justin-taylor/one-rule-to-rule-them-all-the-real-meaning-of-sola-scriptura/

Robert Letham, Systematic Theology (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2019), 234:

[There is a] false notion, held widely, that the slogan sola Scriptura means that the Bible is the only source for theology. . . .

The slogan itself, still less the reality to which it pointed, never meant that the Bible was the only source for theology. The dangers of such a position are most clearly seen in the Socinians, the Jehovah’s Witnesses, and in the early Plymouth Brethren, who, in their first decade, recapitulated many of the heresies of the early church.

When the slogan [sola Scriptura, Scripture alone] was devised, it was never intended to exclude the tradition of the church.


Oliver Crisp, God Incarnate: Explorations in Christology (London: T&T Clark, 2009), 17, discusses the various levels of sources and authority in Christian theology:

[First-Order Authority: Scripture: The Rule that Rules]

1. Scripture is

  • the norma normans [the norm of norms, the rule that rules—a norming, adjusting, or measuring standard by which other measuring tools are to be measured],
  • the principium theologiae [fundamental principle/foundation of theology].

It is the final arbiter in matters theological. . . . the first-order authority in all matters of Christian doctrine.


[Second-Order Authority: Ecumenical Creeds: Rules that Are Ruled]

2. Catholic creeds, as defined by an ecumenical council of the Church, constitute a first tier of norma normata [a norm that is normed, a rule that is ruled, a standard or measure that is itself subject to, and defined by, a greater standard] which have second-order authority. . . .

Such norms derive their authority from Scripture to which they bear witness.

[Third-Order Authority: Confessional Statements: Rules that Are Ruled]

3. Confessional and conciliar statements of particular ecclesiastical bodies are a second tier of norma normata, which have third-order in matters touching Christian doctrine.

They also derive their authority from Scripture to the extent that they faithfully reflect the teaching of Scripture.


[Doctrines from Theologians: Legitimate Theological Opinions]

4. The particular doctrines espoused by theologians including those individuals accorded the title Doctor of the Church which are not reiterations of matters that are de fide, or entailed by something de fide, constitute theologoumena, or theological opinions, which are not binding upon the Church, but which may be offered up for legitimate discussion within the Church.

Can Satan’s Followers Do Miracles?

by Gary Demar – original source here – https://americanvision.org/22443/can-satan-and-his-followers-perform-miracles/

Christian commentators often turn to the story of Moses and Aaron and their encounters with the magicians of Egypt as evidence that demonic miracles are real and can rival God’s miraculous works. If miracles are a way to demonstrate God’s power and authority over the created order, then “if something or someone other than God can perform miracles, then the value of miracles for attesting to Christ’s divinity is negated.” [1]

When Aaron threw down his rod before Pharaoh (Ex. 7:8–12), it became a serpent by the power of God. We shouldn’t be surprised that God can perform such a miracle since He created man from the dust of the ground (Gen. 2:7). For God, turning a dead stick into a serpent is child’s play. Could Pharaoh’s sorcerers and magicians also perform creation miracles? The Bible describes their “powers” as “secret arts,” or more accurately, “deceptive arts” (Ex. 7:11).

These were developed skills—conjurors tricks—that were concealed from Pharaoh and the general public. The livelihood of the magicians depended on their ability to convince Pharaoh that they had miraculous abilities. Pharaoh’s tricksters had no more power than the “magicians” who served in Nebuchadnezzar’s court and could not tell the king the contents of his dream.

Turning a staff into a serpent was a simple magician’s trick. Jannes and Jambres, the names that Paul gives to Pharaoh’s court magicians (2 Tim. 3:8), probably performed this spectacle quite often. It was their signature trick. But how did they create the illusion? Dan Korem, a trained magician, reminds us of similar illusions performed today. “The most practical method to duplicate the magicians’ feat is similar to a trick performed today where a magician changes a cane to a silk handkerchief, rope or a handful of flowers.” [2]

Modern magicians regularly work with animals, so we shouldn’t be surprised if ancient magicians did the same. Here’s how it could have been done. Susan Schaffer, a reptile curator at the San Diego Zoo,

explained that to measure the length of a snake, she takes a tightfitting tube and coaxes the snake into it, as snakes like dark, tight-fitting environs. To replicate the illusion of changing a rod into a snake, a telescopic shell must be constructed to house the snake. Given the materials available during that time period, such as a piece of pliable papyrus, this could easily be made. With the snake concealed inside the “staff,” the magician would simply have to pass his hand over the shell, collapsing it at the same time, leaving the snake in its place. This action could be covered by the motion of throwing the staff to the ground, creating the illusion that the staff visibly changes to a snake. [3]

Lighting would have been poor indoors, so the sleight of hand would have been easily concealed. A good magician could come up with several ways to perform this trick in a way that would convince the casual observer who probably saw what happened around Pharaoh’s court from a distance.

Here’s a short video of a trick I do to make a playing card float in mid air:

After church on Sunday, I picked R.C. Sproul’s book Moses and the Burning Bush that was on display. I was surprised to read the following and how it agreed with comments made by Korem and Kole:

Satan cannot perform miracles. The Bible warns us against the signs that Satan will perform, deceiving even the elect; but those signs are described as lying signs wonders. That doesn’t mean that they are true miracles that are performed for satanic purposes. Rather, they are false signs or tricks; they might be more astonishing than the most impressive magic acts, but they are still tricks. Satan is not God. He cannot do the things God can do. Real miracles that authenticate God’s messengers are acts that only God can do, such as creating something out of nothing or raising people from the dead. Satan can’t control the laws of nature; he’s just a magician. He’s good at his craft, but his craft is altogether evil.

Aaron’s Rod Changed into a Serpent.
Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld, Aaron’s Rod Changed into a Serpent. Charles Foster, Bible Pictures and What They Teach Us (1860).

We saw how that took place in the confrontation that Moses had with the magicians of Pharaoh’s court (Ex. 7:10–13). Moses took that rod), threw it on the ground, and it turned into a snake. But the magicians of Pharaoh just yawned and threw their sticks on the floor too—and they all became snakes. It was the oldest trick in the history of sleight-of-hand: inside each of their sticks was a snake. The sticks collapsed, so the snakes that were already in there could come out. Pharaoh’s court thought that was all Moses was doing, too. But Moses’ “trick” was real; his snake ate all of their snakes. Those magicians were no match for Moses—because they were no match for God. [4]

But didn’t Pharaoh’s magicians turn water into blood and produce frogs on command, replicating the miracles brought about through Moses? The miracle performed by Moses turned the Nile into blood as well as the “rivers … streams … pools … reservoirs” as well as the water in “vessels of wood and in vessels of stone” (Ex. 7:19). Pharaoh’s magicians did the same “with their secret arts” (7:22).

Thinking Straight in a Crooked World

There were “magicians, conjurers, and sorcerers” in Babylon who served under Nebuchadnezzar (Dan. 2:1). If they truly had supernatural powers, they would have been able to interpret the king’s dream as well as to tell him what he dreamed. This they could not do (2:4–14). In fact, they admitted that it was impossible: “‘There is not a man on earth who could declare the matter for the king. . . .’” (2:10). Thinking Straight in a Crooked World explains why. If you are looking for a book to help with biblical apologetics, this is the book to start with.Buy Now

Their trick was to turn a small amount of water into blood. They must have gone to Pharaoh with a small pot of water and showed him how they too could turn it into blood. Magicians turn milk into confetti, a common trick performed by many stage illusionists. [5] Turning clear water into “blood” would be simple. Holding a pouch of blood in the palm of the hand—there was enough of it around—it would have been a simple thing to open it into the water. “Presto-change-o.” Water into blood!

The real miracle would have been for the magicians to turn some of the bloodied water throughout Egypt back into fresh water! This they could not do.

The plague of frogs, like the bloodied waters, occurred throughout Egypt. Once again, the court magicians went to Pharaoh and showed him that they could also produce frogs. “Magicians today produce live doves in the middle of a stage from handkerchiefs; and doves are far more difficult to handle than a docile frog.” [6] Like with the bloody water, the real miracle would have been to rid the land of frogs.

Reginald Scot, author of The Discoverie of Witchcraft (1584), takes an equally skeptical view of miraculous demonic powers being attributed to Pharaoh’s magicians. “If Pharaoh’s magicians had suddenly made frogs, why could they not drive them away again? If they could not hurt the frogs, why should we think that they could make them? … Such things as we are being bewitched to imagine, have no truth at all either in action or essence, beside the bare imagination.” [7]

If someone begins with the assumption that the devil can impart the ability to perform miracles, then he will see miracles in what the ancient and modern art of stage magic is. The replication of frogs was the last trick performed by Pharaoh’s magicians. They ran out of tricks. By the third miracle, “the magicians said to Pharaoh, ‘This is the finger of God’” (8:19). They knew a miracle when they saw it.

  1. André Kole and Jerry MacGregor, Mind Games: Exposing Today’s Psychics, Frauds, and False Spiritual Phenomena (Eugene, OR: Harvest House, 1998), 79.[]
  2. Dan Korem, Powers: Testing the Psychic and Supernatural (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1988), 174.[]
  3. Korem, Powers, 174.[]
  4. R.C. Sproul, Moses and the Burning Bush (Sanford, FL: Reformation Trust Publishing, 2018),99–100.[]
  5. Korem, Powers, 175.[]
  6. Korem, Powers, 175.[]
  7. Reginald Scot, The Discoverie of Witchcraft (New York: Dover Publications, 1972), 180.Scot’s work was originally published in 1584, and only 250 copies were reprinted in 1886. It was reprinted once again in Great Britain in 1930. The 1972 Dover edition is the latest reprint, retaining the spelling of the original edition.[]

Finding Dispensationalism

Article “Dispensationalist Charges William Lane Craig with ‘Willful Ignorance” on the Rapture by Gary Demar – original source – https://americanvision.org/22432/dispensationalist-charges-william-lane-craig-with-willful-ignorance-on-the-rapture/

While doing my daily trek through Facebook looking for relevant news stories, I came across a post with a link to an article with this title: “The Willful Ignorance of William Lane Craig.” The author of the article takes Dr. Craig to task for his comments on the historicity of the rapture in his short video “Is the Rapture a Biblical Doctrine?

Eschatology is not Dr. Craig’s main field of study.

In recent years, several scholars have worked hard to prove that dispensationalism existed prior to John Nelson Darby (1800–1882) around 1830. Here’s the standard argument: “Dispensationalists … argue that while Darby may have been the first to order dispensational distinctives into a lucid system, other theologians held certain dispensational-like presuppositions far before Darby.” [1] For example, William C. Watson’s Dispensationalism Before Darby: Seventeenth-Century and Eighteenth-Century English Apocalypticism (2015), a book that is loaded with great historical sources, argues this way.

I contend that every prophetic system can make the same claim. For example, dispensationalists are premillennial, but premillennialists often argue vociferously against dispensationalism. Consider historic or classical premillennialist George Eldon Ladd:

We can find no trace of pretribulationalism in the early church, and no modern pretribulationist has successfully proved that this particular doctrine was held aby any of the church fathers or students of the Word before the nineteenth century. [2]

Also, apocalypticism and dispensationalism are not synonymous since amillennialists believe in an end-time apocalypse. Neither is a belief in a future great tribulation, the rise and demise of antichrist, or the future redemption of Israel. These and other prophetic doctrines can be found among most prophetic systems.

For example, in the second petition of the Lord’s Prayer (“Thy kingdom come”) of the 17th century Westminster Confession of Faith and Catechisms, the following is found: “we pray, that the kingdom of sin and Satan may be destroyed, the gospel propagated throughout the world, the Jews called, [and] the fullness of the Gentiles brought in … and that he would be pleased so to exercise the kingdom of his power in all the world, as may best conduce to these ends” (Larger CatechismQ/A. 191).

A dispensationalist could agree with what’s stated above, but only within the context of its system. It’s dispensationalism as a system that does not have historical support.

Long before dispensationalism, many Christians commenting on eschatology, most of whom would be described today as postmillennialists, taught the future conversion of the Jews. What they did not teach is the “rapture of the church” prior to a seven-year period in order to separate a remnant of Jews from a new entity called the “church.” See Chapter 3 of my book 10 Popular Prophecy Myths Exposed and Answered.

So much of what we read in the historical record on the topic of Bible prophecy is marred by a failure to consider the nearness of certain prophetic events that Jesus and the New Testament writers specify. Watson and Craig are aware of preterism but do not do a good job dealing with preterist arguments from a biblical perspective.

Watson has numerous entries of preterism in his subject index. He mentions and quotes John Owen (1616–1683) who believed in a future papal antichrist, a belief common to most of the Reformers, many of who were historicists. There is no way that anyone would identify Owen as a dispensationalist even though dispensationalists and Owen (among others) believed in a future conversion of the Jews.

As Watson admits, Owen was mostly a preterist who believed that in the Olivet Discourse (Matt. 24; Mark 13; Luke 21) Jesus “came to destroy Jerusalem and put an end to the Jewish state and dispensation.”

Owen had this to say about 2 Peter 3:10 and the passing away of heaven and earth, a position that dispensationalists, premillennialists, and most amillennialists and postmillennialists would not agree with:

On this foundation I affirm that the heavens and earth here intended in this prophecy of Peter, the coming of the Lord, the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men, mentioned in the destruction of that heaven and earth, do all of them relate, not to the last and final judgment of the world, but to that utter desolation and destruction that was to be made of the Judaical church and state — i.e., the Fall of Jerusalem in A.D. 70. (John Owen’s Works (9:134–135).

Dr. Craig has addressed the subject of preterism from a biblical perspective here. My responses are herehere, and here.

Craig and the dispensationalists share a similar textual fault by failing to account for audience relevance and the timing of prophetic events.

Craig’s views on eschatology are all over the map, but he does seem to share some of the same tenets of dispensationalisms, for example, the belief that “[t]he fall of Jerusalem in AD 70 may have been just a foreshadowing of a final great tribulation and fall of Jerusalem that will take place again at the end of the age. Although Jesus may have thought that many of ‘these things’ would take place within his generation, I don’t think we have any solid grounds for saying that Jesus believed that the coming of the Son of Man was going to take place within the lifetime of his contemporaries.”

To repeat, to hold similar positions on some prophetic topics does not mean that the people who held these similar positions can or should be identified as proto-dispensationalists.

Many premillennialists and amillennialists hold a similar mixed view of the Olivet Discourse but would not see eye-to-eye on the rapture of the church. See Chapter 4 of my book Prophecy Wars for my response to this interpretation.

Prophecy Wars

Prophecy Wars covers topics related to (1) the time texts, audience reference (the use of the second person plural), and prophetic signs that are described by Jesus in the Olivet Discourse (Matt. 24; Mark 13; Luke 21), (2) the claim made that preterism is based on the historical works of first-century Roman-Jewish historian Flavius Josephus (AD 37–100), (4) the meaning of Jesus’ use of “this generation,” (5) John Murray’s (1898–1975) interpretation of Matthew 24–25, (6) Isaiah 17: Prophecy Fulfilled, (7) Blood Moons, Prophecy, and the Integrity of the Bible, (8) “Just Like the Days of Noah,” (9) Calculating the Number of the Beast, and (10) Refuting the Charges of “Replacement Theology.”Buy Now

If there is something in the historical record that aligns with something dispensationalists teach, then that source is often used by dispensationalists to support their claim that dispensationalism was taught before the 19th century. For example, in the first chapter of the book Ancient Dispensational Truth, the author states the following as if it’s historic evidence that dispensationalism existed before Darby and Co.:

Ancient writers called the various ages in which God dealt with mankind in different ways, “dispensations.”

This claim isn’t new to critics of dispensationalism. The system called dispensationalism is more than differences between the covenants or the fact that theologians divided redemptive history into dispensations. “Rightly dividing the word of truth” (a more accurate translation is “accurately handling the word of truth”: 2 Tim. 2:15), a favorite Scofieldian phrase, does not mean dividing up the Bible into sealed off redemptive divisions. The NT itself makes this clear by declaring that there has been a change in the operation of God’s covenant as is obvious from the book of Hebrews and Paul’s writings.

In reading some of these early authors, the word “dispensation” is most often used as a synonym for “covenant.” For example, from John Chrysostom’s “Letter to a Young Widow”: “And God has furnished us with certain tokens, and obscure indications of these things both in the Old and in the New Dispensation.”

Chrysostom is saying nothing more than that both the Old and New Testaments have something to teach widows. This is hardly an endorsement in any way of modern-day dispensationalism.

Dispensationalism, as a system, is not found prior to the 19th century. There is no such system among the early church fathers since their writings lack the necessary elements of the system that defines dispensationalism.

Alan Patrick Boyd, author of “A Dispensational Premillennial Analysis of the Eschatology of the Post-Apostolic Fathers (Until the Death of Justin Martyr),” submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Theology (May 1977) at Dallas Theological Seminary, sums up his detailed study of the period with the following:

It is the conclusion of this thesis that Dr. Ryrie’s statement [that “premillennialism is the historic faith of the Church” [3]] was the view of the early is historically invalid within the chronological framework of this thesis. The reasons for this conclusion are as follows: 1). the writers/writings surveyed did not generally adopt a consistently applied literal interpretation; 2). they did not generally distinguish between the Church and Israel; 3). there is no evidence that they generally held to a dispensational view of revealed history; 4). although Papias and Justin Martyr did believe in a Millennial kingdom, the 1,000 years is the only basic similarity with the modern system (in fact, they and dispensational pre-millennialism radically differ on the basis of the Millennium); 5). they had no concept of imminency or a pre-tribulational rapture of the Church; 6). in general, their eschatological chronology is not synonymous with that of the modern system. Indeed, this thesis would conclude that the eschatological beliefs of the period studied would be generally inimical to those of the modern system (perhaps, seminal amillennialism, and not nascent dispensational pre-millennialism ought to be seen in the eschatology of the period).

This means, if premillennialism is not the historic faith of the Church, then neither can dispensationalism be. The system known as dispensationalism is a 19th-century invention.


  1. Scott Aniol, “Was Isaac Watts a Proto-Dispensationalist?,” Detroit Baptist Seminary Journal, 16:1 (2011), 91.[]
  2. The Blessed Hope (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1956), 31. []
  3. Charles C. Ryrie, The Basis of the Premillennial Faith (Neptune, NJ: Loiseaux Brothers, 1953), 17. Also see page 33. []