From: Bruce Terry (terry@bible.acu.edu)
Date: Mon Sep 04 1995 - 12:15:54 EDT
I apologize for the delay in answering Jan's post. The first week of fall
classes did not leave as much time for working on this as I would have wished.
I have taken the liberty of breaking up my response into four messages, of
which this is the first. Messages are getting much too long on this topic, as
well as much too personal. Hopefully I have avoided the latter pitfall.
On Tue, 29 Aug 1995, Jan Haugland wrote:
>Bruce Terry (now I hoep I got it right!) said:
>> >There is no alternating. The destruction of the temple and the second
>> >coming would occur at the same time.
>>
To be absolutely clear: I was quoting you at that time. This is your
position, not mine. Mine is with the ">>" below.
>> The alternating blocks are as follows in Matt. 24:
>> where A: destruction of temple/Jerusalem
>> B: second coming of Christ
>
>Based on the *assumption* that these are not one and the same thing. You will
>have to point out arguments for putting 1900+ years between these blocks of
>texts. There is nothing that I see that indicates such "alternating".
Actually, this seems like a real good assumption to me, based on my conviction
that Jesus actually did give this discourse much as it is written (probably in
Aramaic) and that He had prophetic (i.e. here using the term to mean the
ability to foretell the future) abilities. The events in the A-blocks
happened within 40 years. So did the events that pretended to be second
coming events or signs thereof mentioned in the B-blocks. But the PAROUSIA
(taking that as a technical term for the second coming), as defined by other
passages as well as this one, has not yet occurred: no resurrection of
Christians, no Christ decending from heaven, no archangel's call, no trumpet
call of God, no catching up of the Christians to meet the Lord in the air, no
destruction of the heavens and earth by fire (1 Cor. 15:23; 1 Thess. 4:15;
2 Pet. 3:4, 12).
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Bruce Terry E-MAIL: terry@bible.acu.edu
Box 8426, ACU Station Phone: 915/674-3759
Abilene, Texas 79699 Fax: 915/674-3769
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