three stages of prophetic fulfillment A gracEmail subscriber asks what Peter meant when he said: "Therefore repent and turn back so that your sins may be wiped out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and so that he may send the Messiah appointed for you -- that is, Jesus. This one heaven must receive until the time all things are restored, which God declared from times long ago through his holy prophets."
the pause in the end of the world A gracEmail subscriber reacts to a recent column: "This line caught my attention, 'during this pause in the End of the world . . . .' With all that is happening what insights might you offer? I've always thought the Lord could come back in my lifetime."
the end has begun A gracEmail subscriber asks how the New Testament writers could say that the end is near, since 2,000 years have now gone by and world history still continues.
holding the world lightlyWe live during an interim on God's calendar, a defined but unknown period of time that began . . . when Jesus was enthroned at God's right hand in heaven and will continue until the last enemy, death, has been destroyed (Psalm 110:1). It is simultaneously the period of heaven's reception of Jesus, which will end with the redemptive restoration of all things spoken by the ancient prophets (Acts 3:20-21). In both respects, we live between the Already and the Not Yet.
end-time people (two gracEmails)A gracEmail subscriber asks, "What does the Bible mean when it says that we are living in the end-time? How is that true since we live almost 2,000 years after such statements were first made? If this is the end-time, how should that affect the way we live?"
the end has come -- 'already' but 'not yet' (two gracEmails) I recently noted that, in the person of Jesus Christ, the End of the world has come to us in advance, and that those who finally will be saved were both judged and acquitted in Jesus their representative. Bible scholars sometimes call this "realized eschatology." A Texas brother inquires whether I agree with the notion held by some, that Jesus' Second Coming occurred in its fullness in A.D. 70, which proponents also call "realized eschatology."
living in two agesNot a gracEmail but a brief Power Point program illustrating the message of the previous three gracEmails.
70 A.D. and Christ's returnA gracEmail subscriber heard a preacher say that Jesus Christ returned invisibly and for the last time when the Roman army destroyed Jerusalem and its temple in A.D. 70. This reader asks whether we ought to expect Jesus to return visibly and in person at the end of human history.