Thoughts on George Ladd's HP & the 144,000

A re-post.

Years ago George Ladd often came up in discussions about rapture timing. His book, The Blessed Hope, has been popular in posttrib-prewrath circles. Like Spurgeon, he was historic premil. If you didn't want to be burdened with dispensational baggage (pretrib rapture etc); you could call yourself historic premil (just like Ladd). Later on, some shifted to progressive dispensationalism for similar reasons.

Ladd also held to Covenant Theology, blurred the distinctions between Israel and the church, and allegorized and re-interpreted the Old Testament based on the New Testament. This was the subject of debate in 2011. See a previous article HERE. And more recently HERE.

I've seen comments that pretribbers hold to the idea that the 144,000 (Rev 7) are evangelists because of alleged pretrib problems associated with the Great Multitude. Many if not most posttribulationists today deny that their role is evangelism. This wasn't always the case.

In fact in The Blessed Hope (p 45), Ladd cites posttribulationist Nathaniel West who believed the 144,000 to be the “Israelitish Church.” He taught that this group is the fulfillment of the promises of Romans 11 – the salvation of literal Israel. Accordingly, their salvation occurs at the start of the 70th week as a result of the missionary work of the Two Witnesses. They are sealed so that they can take the place of the [predominantly Gentile] church!

So this isn't an original pretrib idea crafted out of necessity. In this view the Great Multitude is the church which suffers "near extinction at the hands of the Antichrist in the Great Tribulation." Ladd and West did not view the multitude of Revelation 7 as the raptured church.

Yet (confusingly) Ladd also took the view that the 144,000 are a symbolic expression of the church:

These twelve tribes cannot be literal Israel, because they are not the twelve tribes of OT Israel. The list here appears nowhere else in the Bible. It has three irregularities: it names Judah first, thus ignoring the OT order of the tribes; it omits Dan with no explanation (see Eze. 48:1); it mentions Joseph instead of Ephraim. Perhaps John meant by this irregular listing of the twelve tribes to designate the Israel that is not the literal Israel. . . . The twelve tribes were irregularly listed to show that true Israel is not literal Israel, but the Church. (Cited in Tony Garland's A Testimony of Jesus Christ. Note Garland's response)

For more on Ladd's position re Israel and re-interpretation of the OT see Mike Vlach's blog. Dr. Vlach also addresses some of The Orange Mailman's objections re criticisms of Ladd.

We'll Convert Your Children

Time to wake up...

What The Ed Litton Scandal Can Teach Christian Bloggers

Thought this was pretty good. It hits close to home.

You don’t have to belong to the Southern Baptist Convention to have heard that its newly elected president, Ed Litton, preached a sermon almost word for word that outgoing SBC president J.D, Greear had previously preached. A simple Google search will verify this fact. Justin Peters put out a video showing both sermons, which you can view here. And this scandal most assuredly needs much discussion, especially because (in the words of the more liberal element of the SBC) the world is watching...keep reading

Eclectic Interpretation of Revelation?

A re-post...

I try to read people I disagree with. It pays to try to understand what they say, and you can learn a lot. Often they constructively inform you.

Recently I came across Brian Tabb's new book "All Things New - Revelation as Canonical Capstone." It isn't a verse by verse commentary on Revelation. Rather it is divided into five parts and subsections addressing different aspects of Revelation. For example, there's a section on The Triune God. The chapters may be read on their own rather than sequentially.

Tabb takes an Eclectic view. He's gracious where he disagrees with the Futurist view and in many areas quite insightful. I like that he cites Thomas and MacArthur rather than popular prophecy teachers. However, citations of these two are minimal compared to Beale, Bauckham etc. I haven't finished reading the book and this isn't a review. But I'm far enough into it to note that he can be as frustrating as informative.

Two examples...

Covenant Theologians aren't fond of the term "Replacement Theology" yet on page 107, Tabb writes that: "Revelation 3:9 presents further evidence that the church is true Israel." Elsewhere he (in my opinion) makes a huge deductive (eclectic?) leap by suggesting that the Ezekiel Temple and the New Jerusalem Temple are the same thing expressed in different ways.

Michael Gorman (Reading Revelation Responsibly) wrote that one should look at the Big Picture when reading Revelation. Yet I can't help thinking that, what too often happens, is a re-painting of what the original painter of the picture intended. The "big picture ending" may be the same, but the preceding details are important. These "systems of interpretation" end up being useful ways of avoiding what the texts do say - especially regarding national Israel.

Perhaps I'm being sophomoric (once again) but the eclectic view seems overly messy and fluid.

Anyway, Tony Garland's article "Systems of Interpretation" is most helpful to me.

New Book by Mike Vlach

I am excited to announce the release of my new book, The Old in the New: Understanding How the New Testament Authors Quoted the Old Testament. The book is published by Kress Biblical Resources with an imprint from The Master’s Seminary. I have been working on this book since 2011. It was formed through years of teaching a Th.M. seminar at The Master’s Seminary called, “New Testament Use of the Old Testament.”...keep reading

Owen Strachan Wokeness and the Gospel

 Important presentation

What’s behind the surge in Anti-Semitism?

Melanie Phillips...