Since the Reformation, it has been taught more and more among Protestants that Jesus declared the Kingdom to have arrived, but that he taught his disciples the “true” understanding of the Kingdom, namely that of God’s reign in one’s heart.  In addition, another common misunderstanding that leads to the belief that the Kingdom must have been redefined is the question of when Jesus expected it to take place. If Jesus had indeed meant a political kingdom that would overthrow Israel’s oppressors, he would seem to have been wrong about it being “at hand.” Much is made of Jesus’ supposed belief that his return would be in the lifetime of his disciples, but he told them he did not know when he was going to return (Matthew 24:36; Mark 13:32).

In Part 1, we saw that the words for “generation” (Hebrew, dowr; Greek, genea) can have more than one meaning, and one of the meanings is a group of people with like characteristics, especially a group characterized by negative traits, as in “this crooked and perverse generation.”  We saw examples in the Old Testament, and we saw that this sense was in fact used more often than the literal sense in the Gospels.

One of the main reasons that other viewpoints don’t like the idea of a futurist interpretation of prophecy is that certain sections of Scripture appear to have Jesus say that the end would come before that generation passed away.  There has been much speculation about whether Jesus was mistaken or misunderstood, since the Kingdom apparently did not come to pass in the lifetime of his disciples.  C. S. Lewis wrote in his essay, “The World’s Last Night” (in 1960),

In looking through some old study literature, I ran across some articles I had saved from the late Bible scholar E.W. Bullinger.  I thought I would post this shorter one here on Kingdomready in the hopes that others might find it interesting as well.

The One Great Subject of the Word

The following post was just made by our sister in Christ, Sue Wilding on the Tell Us How We Are Doing Page:

Knowing that you do not believe in the rapture, per say, could you please reconcile the difference between the scriptures talking about Jesus coming like a thief in the night and the scripture of every eye shall see Him (as lightning flashes from the east to the west). It would seem reasonable to me that these are two separate happenings. Also, what would be the point of us meeting Christ in the air only to accompany him to the ground, and where are we supposed to be during the wrath period as the word says that we (believers) are not appointed to wrath. Thankyou.