Exegesis and Theology

The Blog of Brian Collins

Schreiner on Spiritual Gifts

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Schreiner, Thomas R. Spiritual Gifts: What They Are and Why They Matter. Nashville: B&H, 2018.

This is an excellent brief introduction to spiritual gifts. The first part of the book presents wise pastoral counsel about what spiritual gifts are and how people should exercise them in the church. The latter part of the book is a brief, winsome defense of the cessationist position.

Schreiner had in the past held to the continuationist position. He comments about his change of mind: “What set me personally back on the road to cesssationism is this very matter of prophecy. I slowly became convinced that the idea that New Testament prophets were different in nature from Old Testament prophets was flawed. Instead, it is more convincing to say that New Testament prophets were infallible like Old Testament prophets” (loc 1681). Like Schreiner, I have always found this (rather than tongues) to be at the heart of the debate.

Schreiner argues that NT prophecy is infallible because there would need to be a clear indication in the NT if prophecy became fallible. To the contrary, the quotation of Joel 2:28 in the NT points to continuity. The NT warnings about false prophets point in the same direction. Second, Ephesians 2:20 teaches that the church was built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets. While Grudem argues that this should be interpreted as “the apostles who are prophets” (thus showing a distinction between infallible and fallible NT prophets), Schreiner notes that Grudem misapplies the Granville Sharp rule to make this claim. Third, the NT demands that prophecies be judged, and the standard laid out in Deuteronomy 18 is that true prophets and prophecies are without error. Fourth, Schreiner rejects that argument that Paul’s claim of apostolic authority over prophets shows that prophets could be in error. “The issue here isn’t whether the words of the prophets are mixed with error. Instead, the issue is whether one is a false prophet!” (loc. 1203). Fifth, Schreiner rejects the claim that the prophecy of Agabus in Acts 21 was in error, noting that Paul in Acts 28 indicates that it was not. Further, Schreiner observes, “if Agabus is judged to be in error, the same kind of judgment could be used to assess other texts which some claim have errors” (loc 1225).

With regard to tongues, Schreiner holds that Acts 2 defines tongues as xenoglossia. None of the following passages in Acts or 1 Corinthians demand that tongues be understood as glossolalia. Thus the claimed gift today is not the same thing as the gift of tongues as practiced in the New Testament.

Al Wolters on Nature and Grace in Proverbs 31

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Wolters, Albert M. “Nature and Grace in the Interpretation of Proverbs 31:10-31.” Calvin Theological Journal 19, no. 2 (November 1, 1984): 153-166.

In this article, Wolters looks at how different views of the relation between nature and grace have affected the interpretation of Proverbs 31:10-31.

He observes that those who oppose grace to nature tend to allegorize this passage. This was common from Origen through the Middle Ages. Even interpreters who focused on the literal sense, like Nicholas of Lyra, took the allegorical understanding to be the literal sense of this passage. Since Toy, many critical interpreters who assume that ancient Israel held a nature against grace view claim the poem was originally secular.

In the 18th-20th centuries, Catholic writers give a grace above nature interpretation of this passage. On this reading, much of the passage deals with merely natural virtues, but at the end of the poem these are transcended by true fear of God.

Luther exemplifies the grace alongside nature view. Wolters notes that Luther was influential in ending the allegorical interpretation of the passage. But Luther still distinguished grace and nature in this marginal comment to his translation of the passage: “That is to say, a woman can live with a man honourably and piously and can with a good conscience be a housewife, but she must also, in addition and next to this, fear God, have faith and pray.”

Regarding a grace restores nature viewpoint, Wolters says, “Applied to the Song of Proverbs 31, this paradigm fosters an interpretation which looks upon the fear of the Lord as integral to the poem as a whole. Religion is not restricted to verse 30, but pervades the whole… Here the woman’s household activities are seen, not as something opposed to, or even distinct from, her fear of the Lord, but rather as its external manifestation.”

Wolters holds to the fourth view, but he is willing to grant that the “Valiant Woman as the personification of Wisdom—not in an allegorical sense, but in the sense of an earthly embodiment of what it means to be wise.”

Martin Luther’s Bondage of the Will

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Luther, Martin. Career of the Reformer III. In Luther’s Works. Volume 33. Edited by Helmutt Lehmann and Philip S. Watson. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1999. [Bondage of the Will]

The Bondage of the Will is essential reading. Luther believed that Erasmus, to whom he is responding, reached the heart of the Reformation in his critique. It is important to recognize that by bondage of the will Luther does not mean that people do not do what they please. Rather, he means that the will is so bound by sin that people will not choose to come to God apart from the working of God upon their hearts. Luther’s argumentation is both theological and exegetical.

Mark Garcia on Union with Christ in Calvin’s Theology

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Mark A. Garcia, “Of Doorposts and Hinges: Calvin on Union with Christ.” (2009).

In this unpublished paper, Garcia argues Calvin saw both justification and sanctification flow from a single union with Christ: “The blessings of union with Christ, then, are distinct, inseparable, and simultaneously bestowed” (5). It is not the case that Justification is the basis for union with Christ, but the reverse. The question then arises: how does one make sense of Calvin’s statement that justification is “the main hinge on which religion turns,” “the sum of all piety,” and even “the foundation for all godliness?” Garcia argues that the meaning of “religion,” piety,” and “godliness” are important here. When Calvin speaks of religion here he is not speaking in terms of a theological system but in terms of the Christian life Theologically, justification is not the ground of sanctification, but experientially it is. “To see this, one needs only to turn to Calvin’s brilliant treatment of justification in his Institutes, Book 3, and note that whenever he uses language that suggests, at first sight, that justification is central to salvation or the Christian faith, or that justification causes sanctification, one finds that he has this experiential, not theological (as distinguished above), connection in view. In fact, in places where he does turn to the theological relationship, and one perhaps expects him to ground sanctification in justification, one discovers instead that he turns not to justification but to union with Christ, even in the midst of his treatment of justification” (12).

But what does it mean to say that justification is the experiential foundation for Christian piety? Garcia explains: “justification by faith alone affords the believer the necessary and essential confidence before God, the secure and stable foundation of a pure conscience, that spurs him on in the pursuit of piety and walking in holiness.” And why is Calvin concerned to maintain this? Because he desired to combat the Roman Catholic claim that the Protestant view of justification resulted in a legal fiction with no real impact on holy living.

Garcia, Mark A. “Imputation and the Christology of Union with Christ: Calvin, Osiander and the Contemporary Quest for a Reformed Model.” Westminster Theological Journal 68 (2006): 219-51.

In this article Garcia challenges those who think they can replace the concept of imputation with that of union with Christ (N. T. Wright, Don Garlington, Richard Hays, etc.). Garcia objects that these interpreters too often fail to probe what the nature of union with Christ is, which is a necessary step prior to determining whether imputation is necessary. As a way of answering the question of the nature of the union, Garcia examines Calvin’s controversy with Osiander, an extreme Lutheran. In the course of this study, Garcia observes that Calvin brought together his view of union with Christ with his debate with the Lutherans regarding their insistence on the ubiquity of Christ’s human nature and its presence in the Lord’s Supper. In contrast to the Lutherans, the Reformed held that what is true of the natures of Christ are attributed to the Person. Analogously (but only analogously since our union with Christ is not hypostatic), the righteousness of Christ is attributed to those in union with him on the grounds that they are in union with him. But to say this is simply to say that Christ’s righteousness is imputed to us. In other words, imputation works along with union with Christ rather than apart from it. It is an important theological concept because it reminds us that even though there is union “two distinct beings are always in view.”

“Adam’s Reward: Heaven or Earth?”

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Herzer, Mark A. “Adam’s Reward: Heaven or Earth?” In Drawn Into Controversie: Reformed Theological Diversity and Debates Within Seventeenth-Century British Puritanism. Edited by Michael A. G. Haykin and Mark Jones. Oakville, CT: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2011.

Mark Herzer observes that while Reformed theologians agreed that Adam would have received eternal life if he had kept the covenant of works, disagreement existed as to where that life would have been lived. On one side were Francis Turretin, Thomas Boston, Thomas Ridgley, and John Brown who held this was to be a heavenly life. On the other side were Thomas Goodwin, John Gill, and Jonathan Edwards who held to an earthly life in paradise. Others, John Ball, Peter Bulkeley, and Anthony Burgess did not think there was enough biblical data on which to take a position.

Herzer focuses his attention on Thomas Goodwin and Francis Turretin. Goodwin argued for an earthly life on the basis that only Christ, who is both God and man could secure a heavenly reward. Turretin argued that if the threat is eternal death in hell, the reward could not be less than heaven.

Framing the Debate over the Continuation or Cessation of Tongues

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Wayne Grudem has asserted that the continuationist has the stronger biblical evidence and that the cessationist position has developed primarily from experience—or, rather, the non-experience of miraculous gifts.

I encounter students and pastors all the time who say “I’m not persuaded by the cessationist arguments from Scripture but I’ve never seen any of these miraculous things in my life.” That is the most common comment that I hear about these things from people who are in mainstream Evangelical positions. And over the years as I’ve taught not only here at Phoenix Seminary but at other seminaries – adjunct at other seminaries – by far the most common view expressed among seminary graduates is open but cautious. They say “I’m not convinced by the cessationist arguments but I really don’t know how to put these things into practice in my own church and I’ve never seen them happen.” Tim, the cessationist argument is not winning the day in terms of exegetical arguments or persuasiveness in the books published. I think it’s appealing to a smaller and smaller group of people. . . . [Jack Deere’s] argument is that the primary reason why cessationists hold their view is experience. That is, he says, they haven’t experienced any of these miraculous gifts and so they construct a theology to justify it. [Wayne Grudem, interview by Tim Challies, 14 December 2005]

In constructing his argument in this way, Grudem fails to recognize an important distinction. There is a difference between saying “I believe the miraculous gifts are/are not operative because I have/have not experienced them” and saying “I believe the miraculous gifts are/are not operative because the claimed gifts that are present today do/do not match the Scripture definitions of the gifts.

In countering the continuationist, the cessationist need only demonstrate the continuationist practices do not match the norm laid down in Scripture. If the cessationist is able to provide some scriptural rationale for the evident cessation, he will strengthen his case. But this is not strictly necessary. All that is necessary is to show that the Scriptural data and the contemporary practices are at odds.

This approach is an application of John Frame’s ethical methodology. Frame says, “Every ethical decision involves the application of a law (norm, principle) to a situation by a person (self).” (The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God, 74). Frame’s ethical method also applies to practical theology. It is appropriate to apply the norm of Scripture to a situation (practice) to determine whether or not the practice is biblical.

While considerable argumentation is needed to establish the norm and the situation in this case, several observations from D. A. Carson, a continuationist, point to the strength of the cessationist position operating according to this methodology.

Carson concludes that “the evidence favors the view that Paul thought the gift of tongues was a gift of real languages, that is, languages that were cognitive, whether of men or of angels” (Carson, Showing the Spirit, 83). He continues:

Moreover, if [Paul] knew of the details of Pentecost (a currently unpopular opinion in the scholarly world, but in my view eminently defensible), his understanding of tongues must have been shaped to some extent by that event. Certainly tongues in Acts exercise some different functions from those in 1 Corinthians; but there is no substantial evidence that suggests Paul thought the two were essentially different. [83]

Carson’s way of affirming the biblical evidence and allowing for the nonlinguistic tongues practiced today is to suggest that perhaps modern tongues is a code. The example he gives is the removal of vowels from the sentence, “Praise the Lord, for his mercy endures for ever,” the removal of the spaces between the words, the addition of an “a” after the consonants, and a division back into “words”: “PATRA RAMA NA SAVARAHA DAHARA DAFARASALA FASA CARARA” (86-87).

In this way Carson can correlate the biblical evidence “that Paul believed the tongues about which he wrote in 1 Corinthians were cognitive” (83) with the modern linguistic studies which demonstrate that modern tongues are not languages. This is imaginative, but that a scholar of Carson’s stature is forced to reach this far in an attempt to reconcile the biblical record with the modern practice, tends to lead one to the conclusion is that the modern practice is something other than what is described in the biblical record.

Carson also notes J. I. Packer’s view that modern tongues are not the gift of tongues found in Scripture, but that they may be considered a gift from God despite their lack of “explicit biblical warrant.” Carson rightly remarks, “I cannot think of a better way of displeasing both sides of the current debate” (84). But more than that, if Packer’s view is true—and the evidence suggests that it is since continuationists don’t claim the gift of xenoglossia—it would confirm the cessation of the gift of tongues.

Calvin on the Inseparability of Justification and Sanctification

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For we dream neither of a faith devoid of good works nor of a justification that stands without them. This alone is of importance: having admitted that faith and good works must cleave together, we still lodge justification in faith, not in works. We have a ready explanation for doing this, provided we turn to Christ to whom our faith is directed and from whom it receives its full strength.

Why, then, are we justified by faith? Because by faith we grasp Christ’s righteousness, by which alone we are reconciled to God. Yet you could not grasp this without at the same time grasping sanctification also. For he “is given unto us for righteousness, wisdom, sanctification, and redemption” [1 Cor. 1:30]. Therefore Christ justifies no one whom he does not at the same time sanctify. These benefits are joined together by an everlasting and indissoluble bond, so that those whom he illumines by his wisdom, he redeems; those whom he redeems, he justifies; those whom he justifies, he sanctifies.

But, since the question concerns only righteousness and sanctification, let us dwell upon these. Although we may distinguish them, Christ contains both of them inseparably in himself. Do you wish, then, to attain righteousness in Christ? You must first possess Christ; but you cannot possess him without being made partaker in his sanctification, because he cannot be divided into pieces [1 Cor. 1:13].

John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. John T. McNeill, trans. Ford Lewis Battles (Louisville, KY: WJK, 2011), 1:798 [3.16.1].

Review of Steven James’s New Creation Eschatology and the Land

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James, Steven L. New Creation Eschatology and the Land: A Survey of Contemporary Perspectives. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2017.

In this book, Steven James identifies two models of eschatology: the spiritual vision model and the new creation model. He notes Hoekema’s work has been seminal in moving modern theologians toward a new creation view, though he acknowledges Hoekema’s reliance on the Dutch Reformed tradition of Kuyper, Bavinck, and Berkhof in this regard, as well as the Belgic Confession (Art. 37).

The first part of chapter 1 surveys the positions of several theologians who hold to new creation eschatology: N. T. Wright, J. Richard Middleton, Russell Moore, Douglas Moo, Howard Snyder. 3-12

The last part of the chapter surveys theological themes that ground the new creation model: the coming kingdom (fulfilled on earth through the restoration of creation), bodily resurrection (which points to a material eternity), and the reconciliation of all things (Co. 1:19-20) under the rule of Christ (1 Cor. 15:24-28), which points toward the restoration of creation (Romans 8).

In his second chapter James surveys the same new creationists introduced in the first chapter on the question of the discontinuity or continuity of the present world with the new creation. The new creationists hold to a new creation that is a renewal or restoration of the present creation rather than a replacement of the present creation. He also provides interpretations of key passages that might tell for (Romans 8) or against (2 Peter 3) this view.

With chapter 3 James turns his attention to the theme of the land. After establishing the importance of the land theme, James surveys the viewpoints of W. D. Davies, Walter Brueggemann, Christopher J. H. Wright, Norman Habel, P. W. L. Walker, Gary Burge, Colin Chapman, O. Palmer Robertson, William Dumbrell, T. D. Alexander, Craig Bartholomew, Peter Gentry and Stephen Wellum, Oren Martin, Bruce Waltke, and others.

James observes that two broad ways of interpreting the land promises are found in these interpreters. Some Christify the land promises so that promises about the land are said to be fulfilled in the person of Christ in a non-material way. The other approach is to universalize the land promise so that what was said about Israel’s particular land is applied to the entire new creation (and to Israel in its land).

Many new creationists, including all those surveyed in the first chapter, follow these metaphorical understandings of how the land promises are fulfilled (most it seems hold to universalizing the land promises). James argues that this is contradictory to the position of continuity between the present earth and the new creation.

First, James observes a logical consistency. Those who adopt one of the metaphorical interpretations hold that a “reality shift” takes place from the giving of the promise in the OT to its fulfillment in the NT. This shift typically moves “from the material, the earthly, the ethnic, to a heavenly, a spiritual, a non-ethnic reality” (words here are from Blaising as quoted by James). But the new creationists are not willing to see eternity as non-material and heavenly. So on what grounds do they hold to a reality shift when it comes to ethnicity and land?

To further complicate matters for new creationists who treat the land promises as metaphors, James observes that many of the Old Testament passages that they appeal to to establish the material reality of the new creation and its continuity with the present creation contain specific land promises.

Further, if the new creation stands in continuity with the present creation, there remains a material land of Israel and a Jerusalem that must be reckoned with. Since the land of Israel is a part of the whole, how, on a new creation model can it be made to stand for the whole. This is further complicated for new creationists holding to a metaphorical view of the land promises by the fact that some of these OT new creation passages involvement movement from other parts of the world to the land of Israel.

In his final chapter James addresses passages from which it is argued that the land promise has been universalized: Matthew 5:5; John 4:19-24; Romans 4:13. In each case, he argues that the passages are not universalizing the land promise. He then makes the positive case that “affirmation of a future role for the territorial particularity of Israel” fits best with the new creation model.

Though James seems to be a progressive dispensationalist, he argues that the position he is defending need not be limited to premillennialists or dispensationalists. He observes that Vern Poythress, an amillennial covenant theologian holds that in the eternal state believing Jews will receive the promises of Abraham regarding their land.

James’s book provides a good survey of both new creation eschatology and the theme of land within Scripture. Even those who disagree with his conclusions would find this book to be a helpful place to start to become oriented to the major issues. I also find his thesis—that consistent new creationism logically and exegetically entails the fulfillment of the land promises to Israel for Israel in the new creation—to be compelling. I don’t think that this obviates a universalizing extension of land promise (so I wouldn’t feel the need to take as hard a line on Matthew 5:5 or Romans 4:13) since I see universalizing extensions of the promise sitting alongside the particular promises in the OT itself.

Progressive Covenantalism has advertised itself as via media between covenant theology and dispensationalism, but it risks becoming simply another option. I see no logical, theological, or exegetical reason why James’s proposal could not be accepted by dispensationalists, progressive covenantalists, and covenant theologians.

Quarles on 1 Thessalonians 1:9

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Quarles, Charles L. The ΑΠΟ of 2 Thessalonians 1:9 and the Nature of Eternal Punishment,” Westminster Theological Journal 59, no. 2 (Fall 1997): 201-12.

Quarles is responding to annihilationists who argue that since 2 Thessalonians 1:9 says the wicked will “suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord,” and since God is omnipresent, therefore to be away from God’s presence means to be annihilated. Quarles draws on passages from the Old Testament in which sinners who enter God’s presence are destroyed to argue that the απο, in this case, is not indicating separation, is in the ESV quoted above (cf. NASB, NIV, NRSV). Instead, the presence of the Lord is the source of the destruction. This understanding may be reflected in the translation of the CSB: “pay the penalty of eternal destruction from the Lord’s presence.”

I think Quarles makes a good case. However, I don’t think it is a necessary case to oppose an annihilation view. Even if από is separative, it does not imply annihilation. The presence of God does not always refer to God’s omnipresence. Sometimes it refers to a special fellowship that God’s people have with him. Adam and Eve lost this in Eden, it was symbolically restored in the tabernacle, further restored in the Incarnation, and then advanced in the giving of the Spirit. The presence of God is significant for all these events, but it is not omnipresence that is in view.

1 Thessalonians 4:13-17 and the Timing of the Rapture

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The timing of the rapture is a complicated subject because any interpreter’s conclusions depend on interlocking assumptions brought from the interpretation of other passages. On the one hand 1 Thessalonians 4:13-17 is the key rapture passage. It is the passage about saints being caught up into the air to meet the Lord. And yet, this passage, on its own, (arguably) reveals nothing of the timing of the Tribulation (Hiebert, 1 & 2 Thessalonians, 218) (Note the difficulty of even stating the question without bringing in the understandings of other passages to bear. Hiebert and Hoekema, to use just one example, are going to have differing understandings of the Tribulation [cf. The Bible and the Future, 332]). Thus the timing of the rapture has to be discerned by relating the passage to other Scriptural passages.

When it comes to this passage there seem to be two major arguments in favor of a post-tribulation view, one internal to the passage and one external.

First, post-tribulationalists argue that ἀπάντησις is used to indicate going out to meet a dignitary and to lead him back to the city. This points toward a rapture in which the saints immediately return to earth with Christ after having been caught up to meet him in the air (though it should be noted that Beale and Weima, in their commentaries, take the clouds and the snatching up to be apocalyptic imagery rather than an indication of any actual movement).

The argument that ἀπάντησις is a technical term is argued for by Peterson in TDNT. It has subsequently been adopted by a number of commentaries. However, after tracking down the usage of the term in the sources noted in LSJ and elsewhere, it seems to me that TDNT’s treatment of ἀπάντησις is an example of the kind of thing for which James Barr critiqued TDNT. The term ἀπάντησις can be used to indicate going out to meet a dignitary with the purpose of bringing him back to one’s city, but it is not always thus used. Thus EDNT seems to exhibit sounder judgment when it says, “The evidence (Peterson [TDNT] 683–92) is not so much proof for a t.t. [technical term] … as for the existence and form of an ancient custom” (1:115). Whether that ancient custom is in view in a particular text depends not on the presence of the term but on “the exegesis of the respective contexts” (Ibid.). In this case, it is not a delegation that goes out to meet Christ; all those in Christ meet him. Nor do they go out to meet him; they are caught up to meet him. It doesn’t seem to me that the exegesis favors the post-tribulational understanding of ἀπάντησις. For further discussion, see here.

More impressive, in my opinion, for the post-tribulation position are the parallels seem to exist between Matthew 24 and 1 Thessalonians 4. On a pre-tribulation view, Matthew 24 deals (primarily) with the Second Coming proper whereas 1 Thessalonians 4 deals with a previous rapture. The post-tribulation position is able to identify these two passages with the same event.

Greg Beale lists the following parallels in his commentary on the Thessalonian epistles:

    1. Christ returns
    2. from heaven
    3. accompanied by angels
    4. with a trumpet of God
    5. believers gathered to Christ
    6. in clouds

Nonetheless, the parallels between Matthew 24 and 1 Thessalonians 4 are not as impressive as they appear at first glance. Points 1, 2, and 6 would, in the nature of the case, be the same at the rapture and at the second coming, if these two events are distinguished. Point 4 is a more exact point of comparison, but if one, for other reasons, sees the events as distinct there is nothing to prevent a trumpet sound at both. Points 3 and 5 are more ambivalent. With regard to point 3, the Thessalonians passage merely mentions the voice of an archangel. The accompaniment by angels is only mentioned in Matthew. With regard to point 5, the Thessalonians passage has the saints caught up to meet Christ in the air. Matthew has the angels collect the elect from the four winds. It is unclear whether this terminology refers to a catching up or to a gathering on earth (Weima and Beale would say it doesn’t matter since the language of catching up is figurative). These differences are harmonizable, but they are differences rather than similarities.

I would say that all things being equal the parallels between Matthew 24 and 1 Thessalonians 4 would lead toward interpreters identifying the two events. But if other considerations come into play, the differences may take on more significance for the interpreter. In any event, the similarities are not of the nature as to compel Matthew 24 and 1 Thessalonians 4 to be a singlular rapture/second coming.

What considerations might lead to the conclusion that 1 Thessalonians 4 and Matthew 24 are distinct events―or better, distinct parts of a complex event that we call the Second Coming? There seem to be two major arguments in favor of a pre-tribulation reading of 1 Thessalonians 4.

The first argument is the lack of harmony between the sequence given in 1 Thessalonians 4 and the sequence given in Revelation 19-20. The sequence of events in 1 Thessalonians 4 is significant because it is at the heart of the argument that Paul is making in that passage. Consider the argument of Weima. He holds that the need for this instruction came from the Thessalonians’ concern that fellow believers “who had already died would be at some kind of disadvantage at the parousia.” That this is the concern is indicated by Paul’s emphasis that the living will not precede the dead at the parousia, the dead will rise first, the living and the resurrected dead will meet Christ together in the air. To argue, as some do, that this is an unreasonable concern “underestimates the great anticipation and hope that the Thessalonians have about participating in the glory of the parousia event (Weima, BECNT, 312-13).

Having established that the sequence given is 1 Thessalonians 4 is significant, it is important, then, to note that pre-millennialists have long argued that Revelation 19-20 gives a sequential description of future events. Here is the complexity noted above in which there is a complex interaction in how passages are understood; as an amillennialist Weima, for instance, probably does not accept the argument that Revelation 19-20 is sequential. Nonetheless, there is a powerful case for seeing Revelation 19-20 as sequential.

  • Revelation 19 narrates the return of Christ and his dealing with the beast and the false prophet. But Satan, a key opponent of Christ, is not dealt with until the beginning of chapter 20. Remembering that chapter breaks were added at a later date, it seems that a natural reading would travel directly from chapter 19 to chapter 20 (noted by Bruce Ware, “Boyce College Eschatology Forum with Schreiner, Ware, and Brand,” Audio Recording, 1:01:03).
  • If there is a sequence that moves from Revelation 19 into Revelation 20, as any premillennialist must argue, Revelation 20:4 continues the sequence. This is especially so since there is a sequence of Καὶ εἶδον (and I saw / then I saw) extending from 19:11 through 21:1 (19:11, 17, 19; 20:1, 4, 11, 12; 21:1) that seems to mark the sequence of events.

If there is a sequence that runs from Revelation 19 through Revelation 20, that sequence does not harmonize with the sequence in 1 Thessalonians 4. In Revelation Jesus returns with the armies of heaven, casts the beast and his prophet into the lake of fire, chains Satan in the abyss, sets up his throne on earth, and then raises saints from death. In 1 Thessalonians 4, Jesus appears in the clouds, raises the dead saints to life, and catches all the saints, living and resurrected, into the clouds. The inability to harmonize these two sequences points to these passages referring two separate events (or to different parts of the complex event, which unfolds over a period of years, which we call the Second Coming).

In further support of the distinction between 1 Thessalonians 4 and Revelation 20 is the indication that the only saints raised in Revelation 20:4 are the Tribulation martyrs. Michael Svigel argues:

“Since the vision from 19:11 through 20:10 appears to be in sequence, and since the armies accompanying Christ are the resurrected, glorified Church, it seems best to understand the unmentioned subject of the third person plural verb in Rev 20:4 as referring to Christ and the armies of heaven accompanying him [cf. KJV, NKJV, NASB]. The passage begins: Καὶ εἶδον θρόνους καὶ ἐκάθισαν ἐπ αὐτοὺς καὶ κρίμα ἐδόθη αὐτοῖς. Some translations have recognized the problem of the lack of the subject here and have adjusted their translations accordingly [cf. NIV, NRSV, ESV, (H)CSB]. However, if one reads the entire passage from 19:11 through 20:10 as one vision described by John, one realizes that immediately before 20:4 the only persons remaining in John’s vision are Christ and his armies descending upon the earth. Thus, those who sit upon the thrones and those to whom judgment is given are those accompanying Christ on white horses. If this is the case, the ones resurrected in Rev 20:4–6 would be limited to the saints martyred during the Tribulation. [Michael J. Svigel, “The Apocalypse Of John And The Rapture Of The Church: A Reevaluation,” Trinity Journal 22:1 (Spr 01) p. 51-52.]

In any event, the only ones identified as being raised in 20:4 are Tribulation martyrs who did not worship the beast. Verse 5 says the rest of the dead are not raised until after the Millennium. This would either mean that only Tribulation saints are resurrected (at the time of a post-tribulation rapture?] with the rest of the dead (including the dead in Christ) having to wait until the end of the Millennium to be raised or that the others who were dead in Christ had already been raised. On the latter view, Tribulation martyrs were the only dead in Christ that were still in need of resurrection at the time of Revelation 20:4. If all other believers were already raised in at the (pre-tribulation) rapture, and if the Tribulation martyrs were raised just after the Second Coming, then only the lost dead remain dead through the Millennium. This latter reading seems more probable.

The second argument in favor of a pre-tribulation reading of 1 Thessalonians 4 relates to what Thessalonians itself says about wrath and the day of the Lord. In the context of the Day of the Lord, which is a day of wrath, 1 Thessalonians 5:9 says that Christians are not destined for wrath (cf. 1 Thess. 1:10). Given the context, it is more likely that wrath refers to the Day of the Lord than merely to Hell. This would also harmonize with Revelation 3:10. Obviously, much more could be said about this second argument.