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Thomas Ice and the Time Texts |
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By Gary DeMar
President -
American Vision
www.americanvision.org
In going through the
LaHaye/Ice (Lice) book The End Times Controversy (ETC), I
continually find the authors arguing for complicated and convoluted
interpretations of passages that are clear when the time parameters, context,
and audience reference are studied and understood. Attention to these factors
hit home for me when I first became a Christian and was told to read Hal
Lindsey's Late Great Planet Earth if I wanted to know what was going to
happen in this end-time generation. This was in 1974. Not knowing anything
about the Bible, I believed that the book's sensationalistic claims were
actually in the Bible. My enthusiasm for the book's premise waned when I
started reading the Bible!
Beginning with Matthew's
gospel, and with Lindsey's paradigm swimming in my head, I found myself
thoroughly confused. The first passage that did not seem to fit with Lindsey's
view was Matthew 10:23: "But whenever they persecute you in this city,
flee to the next; for truly I say to you, you shall not finish going through
the cities of
Ice spends nearly three
pages in ETF trying to show how this passage does not mean what it seems
to mean. "I believe," Ice writes, "because of the nature of the
vocabulary, Matthew 10:21-23 refers to events that will take place during the
Tribulation and climax in the glorious second coming of Christ" (84).
Here's the problem with Ice's claim: He never deals with the vocabulary or the
context. He quotes a bunch of commentators who know what the passage says but
are unwilling to come to grips with its unpleasant implications for their
prophetic system. Ice does the same thing when he tackles Matthew 16:27-28.
The Audience Context of
Matthew 10:23
Whom is Jesus addressing?
"Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves; therefore
be shrewd as serpents and innocent as doves" (
Notice how the discourse
begins: "And having summoned His twelve disciples" (10:1). Jesus is
not describing a future tribulation scenario with a post-rapture, newly
regathered
The Audience Context of
Matthew 16:27-28
As I continued reading
through Matthew's gospel as a new Christian, the next prophetic passage I came
across hit me hard. You know it well: "For the Son of Man is going to come
in the glory of His Father with His angels; and will then recompense every man
according to his deeds. Truly I say to you, there are some of those who are
standing here who shall not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in
His kingdom" (Matt. 16:27-28). Ice spends four pages trying to make this
passage fit his system. There is no need for me to rehearse his arguments here
since they are common attempts to get around the obvious. But Ice brings up one
argument that I had never encountered:
A
further problem with the Preterist view is that our Lord said "some
of those standing here. . . ." It is clear that the term "some"
would have to include at least two or more individuals, since "some"
is plural and coupled with a plural verb, "to be." The word
"some" nicely fits the three disciples--Peter, James, and John
(Matthew 17:1)--who were participants at our Lord's transfiguration. On the
other hand, Peter notes that "John only survived" among the 12
disciples till the destruction of
Ice is arguing that since
only John lived after the destruction of
It's a week later when
Peter, James, and John go up the mount with Jesus. After the experience of the
transfiguration, we read in Mark's account of the event "And when they
[Jesus, Peter, James, and John] came back to the disciples, they saw a
large crowd around them, and some scribes arguing with them" (
The
problem [with this view] is twofold. First, "some who are standing here
will not taste death before they see" is an extraordinary way to refer to
Peter, James, and John, who witness the Transfiguration a mere six days later
(17:1). Second, as magnificent as the Transfiguration was, it is not entirely
clear how the Son of Man comes in his kingdom (Matt) or the kingdom comes in
power (Mark) through this event.
Once again, Ice presents his arguments in terms that his dispensational readers will accept without debate. By never raising the issue of how the second person plural ("you") is used throughout Matthew 10, he is counting on his loyal readers not to notice. And who would think to go to Mark's account of the Transfiguration to see that the "disciples" is a larger group than Peter, James, and John? Of course, we all know the answer to this question: Preterists would.