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Particulars
of Christianity:
314
End Times Prophecy (Eschatology)
Prophetic
Symbols: Daniel 9 and 10 (Part 3)
Prophetic
Symbols: Daniel 9 and 10 (Part 1)
Prophetic
Symbols: Daniel 9 and 10 (Part 2)
Prophetic Symbols: Daniel 9 and
10 (Part 3)
Prophetic Symbols: Revelation
13 (Part 1)
Prophetic Symbols: Revelation
13 (Part 2)
Prophetic Symbols: Revelation
13 (Part 3)
Articles 7-12
Articles 13-18
Articles 19-25
Articles 26-29
So far, we have established the following.
1) That resurrected (glorified) humans, including Jesus
Christ, are according to Jesus himself, "equal to angels."
2) That both Jesus Christ and those who rule with him
during the Millennium will do so with resurrected (glorified)
spirit bodies that make them "equal to" or "as the angels."
3) That there are fallen angelic princes, which rule
over the nations now, including past princes such as the princes
of Persia and Greece.
4) That when the religious leaders of Jesus' day crucified
Jesus, they were carrying out the will of the adversarial
principalities, powers, and rulers of this world.
5) That these angelic princes, and particularly the
prince of the Romans, orchestrated the death of Jesus Christ,
even as spoken of generally by Paul in 1 Corinthians 2.
6) That even after their fall, God has continued to
rebuke and converse with the fallen adversarial spirits with
the desire to make known to them his wisdom and righteousness,
including through veiled statements in the prophets of the
Old Testament.
All of the above points we have established thoroughly from
the scriptures. But by now the question you are no doubt asking
yourself is, "Why? What's the point of all this?"
Keeping in mind that according to Irenaeus, the sentence upon
the fallen angels was contained in the writings of the prophets
but make clear in the words of Jesus Christ, we will now read
the following parable from Matthew 21, which can also be found
in Mark 12 and Luke 20. Here is the parable in its entirety.
Matthew 21:33 Hear another parable: There was a
certain householder, which planted a vineyard, and hedged
it round about, and digged a winepress in it, and built a
tower, and let it out to husbandmen, and went into a far
country: 34 And when the time of the fruit drew near,
he sent his servants to the husbandmen, that they might
receive the fruits of it. 35 And the husbandmen took his
servants, and beat one, and killed another, and stoned another.
36 Again, he sent other servants more than the first:
and they did unto them likewise. 37 But last of
all he sent unto them his son, saying, They will reverence
my son. 38 But when the husbandmen saw the son, they said
among themselves, This is the heir; come, let us kill him,
and let us seize on his inheritance. 39 And they caught
him, and cast him out of the vineyard, and slew him. 40
When the lord therefore of the vineyard cometh, what will
he do unto those husbandmen? 41 They say unto him, He
will miserably destroy those wicked men, and will let out
his vineyard unto other husbandmen, which shall render him
the fruits in their seasons. 42 Jesus saith unto them,
Did ye never read in the scriptures, The stone which the builders
rejected, the same is become the head of the corner: this
is the Lord's doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes? 43
Therefore say I unto you, The kingdom of God shall be taken
from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits
thereof. 44 And whosoever shall fall on this stone shall
be broken: but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind
him to powder. 45 And when the chief priests and Pharisees
had heard his parables, they perceived that he spake of them.
Notice first of all that this is a parable about "the kingdom
of God" as verse 43 plainly attests. But what is the kingdom
of God? Daniel 2:44 is the origin of that phrase.
Daniel 2:44 And in the days of these kings shall the
God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed:
and the kingdom shall not be left to other people,
but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms,
and it shall stand for ever.
As we have already seen, according to Daniel 2:44, the kingdoms
of the Gentiles would come to an end when the Messiah came
and set up the kingdom of the God of heaven, which would never
pass away, and unlike the Gentile kingdoms before it, would
not pass to other people.
Now, while the Matthew account of this parable records that
the hearers were the ones to suggest that what the owner would
do to the tenants, the Mark and Luke accounts inform us that
it was Jesus himself who actually said this first to them.
Mark 12:9 What shall therefore the lord of the vineyard
do? he will come and destroy the husbandmen, and will give
the vineyard unto others.
Luke 20:15 So they cast him out of the vineyard, and
killed him. What therefore shall the lord of the vineyard
do unto them? 16 He shall come and destroy these husbandmen,
and shall give the vineyard to others. And when they heard
it, they said, God forbid.
Notice clearly from the Luke account that in verse 16 the
people are not said to voice a response until after Jesus
has answered his own question, to which they respond, "God
forbid." What is significant about this is only that the Mark
and Luke accounts affirm that this idea that God would remove
the wicked tenants and replace them with obedient tenants
was not only the idea of the hearers, but Jesus himself confirmed
that this is, in fact, what the fate of the wicked tenants
would be.
In this parable, Jesus speaks of "husbandmen" or tenants who
are given charge over a vineyard while the owner is away.
In the parable, the owner is clearly God. As the time draws
near for the harvest of the vineyard, God begins to send servants
to the tenants. These tenants are depicted as have a long
history of murdering the messengers God sends to rebuke and
speak to them. And, when God finally sends his son, the tenants
decide to murder the Son as well. And why? Because they hope
that by murdering God's Son, they will obtain the inheritance
for themselves. The end result is that when God returns, he
will remove those tenants from power, destroy them, and replace
them with tenants who will tend the vineyard obediently.
Now, while this parable does certainly apply to the Pharisees,
just as the Pharisees themselves perceive and just as verse
43 records, it also depicts the exact situation with these
angelic rulers whom God set as stewards over the earth, who
God has rebuked and make known his wisdom to, who rebelled
against God and orchestrated the death of the prophets and
of Jesus Christ his Son. This is particularly true since in
John 8, Jesus clearly states that the Pharisees were carrying
out the will of their father, the devil.
And to be sure, there are parts of this parable, which do
not accurately refer to the Pharisees. For Jesus clearly tells
us that when the tenants see the Son of God coming, they recognize
him as the Son of God. The Pharisees did not recognize Jesus
as the Son of God. Instead, quite the opposite was true. They
believed his claims that God was his Father were false.
John 19:7 The Jews answered him, We have a law, and
by our law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son
of God.
John 19:7 makes it perfectly clear that far from recognizing
Jesus was the Son of God and killing because he was, the Pharisees
actually denied Jesus was the Son of God and killed for claiming
falsely to be so.
Furthermore, Jesus states in the parable that the tenants
killed the Son specifically because, recognizing that he was
the Son, they decided to kill him in order that they could
seize the inheritance for themselves. But did the Pharisees
kill Jesus in order to obtain his inheritance as the Son for
themselves? Did they have any clue that Jesus had the inheritance
of God's Son? Not at all.
So, whose thoughts were these? Who were these tenants that
recognized Jesus as the Son of God? While the Pharisees most
certainly failed to recognize that Jesus was the Son of God,
the Gospels clearly tell us that the devils, which Jesus cast
out, did recognize him as the Son of God.
Matthew 8:29 And, behold, they cried out, saying, What
have we to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of God? art thou
come hither to torment us before the time?
Mark 1:24 Saying, Let us alone; what have we to do
with thee, thou Jesus of Nazareth? art thou come to destroy
us? I know thee who thou art, the Holy One of God.
Mark 3:11 And unclean spirits, when they saw
him, fell down before him, and cried, saying, Thou art
the Son of God.
Mark 5:7 And cried with a loud voice, and said, What
have I to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of the most high God?
I adjure thee by God, that thou torment me not. 8 For he said
unto him, Come out of the man, thou unclean spirit.
Luke 4:34 Saying, Let us alone; what have we to do
with thee, thou Jesus of Nazareth? art thou come to destroy
us? I know thee who thou art; the Holy One of God.
Luke 4:41 And devils also came out of many,
crying out, and saying, Thou art Christ the Son of God.
And he rebuking them suffered them not to speak: for they
knew that he was Christ.
Luke 8:28 When he saw Jesus, he cried out, and fell
down before him, and with a loud voice said, What have I to
do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of God most high? I beseech
thee, torment me not.
And who were these tenants who killed Jesus for the specific
reason of gaining his inheritance as the Son of God? As we
have seen, the Bible plainly tells us it was the chief adversary
and his angelic princes, who in the hopes of preventing the
coming kingdom of God, which would put an end to all their
reign, decided to try and kill the Son of God and obtain the
earth for themselves in the process.
1 Corinthians 2:7 But we speak the wisdom of God in
a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before
the world unto our glory: 8 Which none of the princes of
this world knew: for had they known it, they would not have
crucified the Lord of glory.
Likewise, just as the parable says, God not only spoke concerning
these angelic tenants through the prophets using parables
and allegories as Irenaeus attests, but God will also replace
those angelic tenants with resurrected humans who will rule
and reign with Christ being "equal to angels" once they have
been resurrected. God is replacing the fallen angels to whom
he delegated authority over the kingdoms of earth with redeemed
and glorified men, who God makes equal to the angels through
the resurrection and then delegates to rule the kingdoms of
the earth with Christ in his Millennial reign.
We have now completed a survey of Daniel 2, 7, 8, 9, and 10
as well as a survey of the New Testament regarding angelic
princes. Collecting what we have learned from these surveys,
we can assemble them into the following points to create our
symbolic map legend.
1. A series of unfolding historic empires can be represented
collectively using a single, symbolic entity (such as the
statue of Daniel 2.)
2. The phrases "out of the earth" and "out of the sea"
are used interchangeably by Daniel and, therefore, no great
significance should be attached in the effort to distinguish
between them.
3. Daniel 2, 7, and 8 all depict the same succession
of empires starting with Babylon, then Media-Persia, then
Greece, then Rome (along with another nation represented by
the clay), and finally the coming of the kingdom of God, when
the saints possess the kingdom.
4. Something of the Roman kingdom exists in two time
periods, the time period of the legs before the clay is introduced
into the statue and in the time of the feet and toes after
the clay is introduced into the statue.
5. Beasts represent two items, both kings and their
kingdoms.
6. Horns also represent kings and, unless specified
by the text, horns represent contemporary kings, not a succession
or line of kings.
7. Although horns represent kingdoms that arise out
of an empire that precedes them, the kingdoms represented
by those horns do NOT have to be situated geographically in
the same region as the preceding empire. The kingdoms represented
by the horns can migrate significantly away from the geographic
location of their imperial predecessor.
8. A beast with multiple heads represents an overarching
political entity and the political powers that come from it.
9. Angelic princes rule over the kingdoms of men, and
specifically over the empires described in Daniel 2, 7, and
8.
10. The "prince of the people" who "destroyed the city
and the sanctuary" is NOT the Antichrist, but the angelic
prince who ruled over the Roman Empire.
11. Putting all of this together we can see that Daniel's
writings recorded and anticipated a succession of the following
empires: Babylon, Media-Persia, Greece, Rome, another yet
unknown represented by the clay, and finally a Jewish empire
or kingdom ruled over by Jesus Christ the Jewish Messiah,
the Prince of princes.
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Related
Images


Historic Map Series
(Maps 1-12)


Additional
Relevant Maps


Lexicon Excerpts


Apocalyptic
Comparison Chart


7 Heads of the
Beast Chart


Illustrations of
Symbols Series
(Illustrations 1-7)


Correspondence of
Visions Diagram
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