The kingdom of Jesus Christ was brought into existence in the First Century A. D.

“And he said unto them, Verily I say unto you, There are some here of them that stand by, who shall in no wise taste of death, till they see the kingdom of God come with power. And after six days, Jesus taketh with him Peter, and James, and John, and bringeth them up into a high mountain apart by themselves: and he was transfigured before them.” (Mark 9: 1-2) I alleged that my opponent believes that Mark 9: 1 was fulfilled by Mark 9: 2. He does! He objected to my statement, “My opponent must claim that three people ‘perceived it’ five days later!” Make it six days, then. Scholars differ due to variations in Jewish reckoning of time. He says, “I have not nor will I mention ‘five days later’. The kingdom they saw was simply a vision nothing more.” Then you can mention six days, for it can’t be any longer than that. I maintain that Jesus’s statement in Mark 9: 1 implies that some in His audience would die before the kingdom came. If so, my opponent’s position demands that some in the audience died within a six-day period. Peter, James, and John did not see the kingdom in a vision or elsewhere at the transfiguration scene. The Bible neither states nor implies such a thing. My opponent totally ignores the meaning of eido which as a rule means to perceive, to know. By his reasoning, a blind man could not perceive the coming of the kingdom. ***** Concerning Col 1: 13, my opponent says, “Your response here is meaningless as you do not infuse it with scriptures or evidence of what Paul truly meant.” Assume? The word translated answers to methistemi, a verb which means to transpose, transfer, remove from one place to another and speaks of a change of situation or place.1 That is what Paul meant. The problem is this: Paul said that he and the Colossians had been transferred from the kingdom of Satan into the kingdom of Jesus Christ, and your position is that the kingdom of Jesus Christ did not even exist at the time. ***** Awriternamedred: “Your ASV text is the problem it seems” I have no problem in stating that the KJV translators mistranslated Rev 1: 6. The 1st-century Christian were not kings, but collectively they were a kingdom – and that is what John said. Christians are servants in the kingdom, not kings. ***** “Marvel not at this: for the hour cometh, in which all that are in the tombs shall hear his voice, and shall come forth, and shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation.” Awriternamedred: “Everyone will be resurrected at the first resurrection and some will obtain the celestial body those that do not "make the cut" will be left to prove their worthiness to gain entrance into the kingdom.” Response: That sounds to me like a doctrine of second chances akin to purgatory. Where do you see such a doctrine in John 5? 1. All in the tombs hear His voice 2. All are resurrected 3. There are but two choices: life (Heaven) or damnation (Hell) You cannot find your “those that do not make the cut will be left” in there at all – or anywhere else until you run across it in the types, figures, and symbols of the Apocalypse. ***** Regarding “the kingdom is at hand” and “shortly come to pass”, my opponent says, “so it seems you have no clue you are simply guessing. I appreciate the efforts but is a futile effort if you cannot translate this into an absolute time frame. Could "at hand" mean anything of course it could yet if you cannot pinpoint an exact time you fail miserably with this attempt.” Let’s start at the end. Actually, he believes that “at hand” and “shortly come to pass” are totally meaningless. When Paul said, “The time of my departure is at hand”, he meant nothing – as per my opponent. “At hand” and “shortly come to pass” refer to imminency and have never once referred to a period of more than a hundred years in the entire Bible. I stated that “at hand” might mean a day, a week, a month, a year, or a decade. It could mean several decades. It is an indefinite but brief period of time. My opponent wants me to take an indefinite descriptor, try to ascribe an exact time to it – and if I can’t, then he says I have failed! Pfffffffffft. Let him find a single instance of the phrase meaning two thousand years. A thousand? Five hundred? Any takers? “because for the work of Christ he came nigh unto death, hazarding his life to supply that which was lacking in your service toward me.” (Philippians 2: 30) “Came nigh unto” is eggisen, the same word as in, for instance, Matt 4: 17. Does my opponent mean to tell us that it “could mean anything”? Land’s sakes, it means the man was close to death, that death was imminent. The fact that "at hand" means an indefinite brief period of time does not give my opponent license to claim that it is meaningless. ***** Awriternamedred: “Secondly you have Noah's Ark. Have you forgotten God's power here when he turned the most vicious of beasts into herbivores?” My opponent apparently does not credit Noah with having enough gumption of separate tigers from wildebeests. Almost as powerful as God’s power is the power of my opponent’s imagination. Does my opponent speculate that piranhas attacked and ate other fish prior to the flood, then magically stopped, then cranked their naughty behavior up again at some point post-flood? ***** Awriternamedred: “You say I rely too heavily on the figurative yet this is where you retreat to here with the animals. The Lion eating straw is also a sign of the times” Anna: ‘Tis not I who is turning the figurative into literal, but you. He thinks that if the lions aren’t out grazing in the pasture with the cows, then the kingdom of Christ isn’t here! As proof of the concept: Awriternamedred: “This is a sign that the lord has returned as well as the passage in Joel 2:28-32” Anna: See? The apostle Peter proclaimed on Pentecost that what the people were seeing then and there was a fulfillment of Joel 2: 28-32. He even quoted it to them and said, “This is that.” Ordinarily, if an inspired apostle said, “This fulfills that”, nobody would question it. My opponent says it didn’t! He reads Joel 2: 28-32 and thinks it is yet future. Why? Well, he reasons, the sun has not turned into darkness yet. The moon hasn’t been turned into blood. Yet, Peter says, “This is that!” The truth is in Joel 2, the sun and moon are representative of the Jewish authorities and dignitaries, including the high priest and Sanhedrin, who would be judged along with their entire system – and rejected – during the next several decades, beginning at Pentecost. ***** Awriternamedred: “Where you failed here is that if Christ did establish his kingdom in the 1st century or 2nd century between oh let's say 30-200 AD you must then ad in 1000 years from that time …” I would beg, even plead, with my opponent, after this debate is over, to please read some other post-exilic Jewish apocalyptic literature. I fail to see how someone could expect to make sense out of the Apocalypse of John if he has never studied apocalyptic literature in general. The thousand years in Revelation 20 is not literal – in fact, apocalypses are not literal. By definition, (1) they employ grotesque figures, high typology, and extreme symbolism and (2) the prologue of an Apocalypse will always be literal. It has to be, or else the reader would become a victim of his own imagination. Anyway, my response to these calculations is: the thousand years of Revelation 20 is merely symbolic of a long, complete period of time. It is not literal. “For every beast of the forest is mine, And the cattle upon a thousand hills.” (Ps 50: 10) There are, literally, tens of thousands of hills. We know that God owns the cattle upon a thousand of those hills. Who owns the rest? “Remember his covenant forever, The word which he commanded to a thousand generations” (I Chron 16: 15) What happens at the 1,001st generation? Awriternamedred: “death would then be vanquished much like your credibility to this point” Response: Uh-huh. I’m not the one who desires to make a thousand hills, a thousand generations, and a thousand years literal. You do, apparently, and you can accept the consequences. You based your eschatology upon Revelation 20, and this is the result. ***** I shall close exactly where I began, since the premise has yet to be disproven – despite our anticipated excursions into the figurative language of Revelation. 1. To come in the days of the Roman Emperors 2. The time was fulfilled - it was near 3. Heralded as "near" and "at hand" by John 4. Heralded as "near" and "at hand" by Jesus 5. Preached as "at hand" by the twelve disciples (Matt 10: 7, Luke 9: 2) 6. Preached as "nigh unto you" by the seventy (Luke 10: 9) 7. Awaited by Joseph of Arimethea (Mark 15: 43) 8. Disciples were to pray for it (Matt 6: 10) 9. Would appear before some standing with the Lord would die (Mark 9: 1) 10. Would come with power, power would come with the Spirit (Mark 9: 1) 11. Would all occur in Jerusalem 12. Peter was granted the keys to it PENTECOST 13. After, Pentecost, Paul said he was in the kingdom (Col 1: 13) 14. After Pentecost, Paul said the Colossians were in the kingdom (Col 1: 13) 15. After Pentecost, John said he was in the kingdom (Rev 1: 6, 9) 16. After Pentecost, John said his first readers of Revelation were in the kingdom (Rev 1: 6, 9) 17. After Pentecost, Peter said we are a royal or kingly priesthood (I Pet 2: 9) 18. After Pentecost, John said that Jesus is the ruler of the earth (Rev 1: 5-6) That seems plain enough. My opponent largely talks of lions grazing in pastures, a thousand hills, generations, and years, two literal bodily resurrections and the like – and concludes that he himself is not in the kingdom of Christ, Christ is not seated on His throne, Christ is not reigning, and the kingdom which was at hand two millennia ago has simply not come. I wish to thank my opponent for an honorable discussion. 1 http://www.blueletterbible.org...