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Lest I Come (Maranatha) and smite the Land with a curse (anathema)

 “See, I will send the prophet Elijah (1Ki 17:1; Mt. 11:14; 16:14) to you before that great and dreadful day of the LORD comes. He will turn the hearts of the parents to their children, and the hearts of the children to their parents; or else I will come and strike the land with total destruction .” Mal. 4:5–6 Let him be anathema. Against whom is the threatening in the prophet? if any one doth not love the Lord Jesus Christ—let him be anathema! The Lord hath come! YLT. I pray that God will put a curse on everyone who doesn’t love the Lord. And may the Lord come soon. CEV. 1 Cor. 16:22  [The Aramaic expression marana tha (“O Lord, come!”) can also be rendered maran atha (“our Lord has come”); it is used here by Paul without explanation W. Hall Harris III et al., eds., The Lexham English Bible (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2012)]. Linguistic research thus offers three equally possible meanings of Maran-atha: 1. The prayer “Lord, come” as a petition for the Parousia; 2. the co...
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I am Sending the Promise of my Father Upon You

In the first book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and teach until the day when he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen.   After his suffering he presented himself alive to them by many convincing proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God. While staying with them, he ordered them not to leave Jerusalem but to wait there for the promise of the Father . “This,” he said, “is what you have heard from me; for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.” Acts 1:1–5 Holy Spirit baptism was poured out once upon the apostles . Jesus promised the apostles that the Spirit of Truth, which the world cannot receive, John 14:17 / Luke 24:46-48, would ‘guide them into all truth’.   It was declared at first through the Lord, and it was confirmed for us by those who heard him , while God added his testimony b...
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The Pauline and New Testament Use of Protos: The First Resurrection

 “The First Resurrection” In the opening sentence of the article , Kline declared, “One of the critical points in the exegesis of Rev. 20 is the interpretation of prōtos in the phrase, “the first resurrection” (v. 5). Premillennarians understand prōtos in the purely sequential sense of first in a series of items of the same kind. Consequently, premillennarians interpret “the first resurrection” in Revelation 20:5 as a bodily resurrection , “But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished.  This is the first resurrection.” They also interpret the resurrection event described in Revelation 20:12–13 as a bodily resurrection , “And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the...
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If I will that he Remain till I Come; What is That to You?

 Very truly, I tell you, when you were younger, you used to fasten your own belt and to go wherever you wished. But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go.” (He said this to indicate the kind of death by which he would glorify God.) After this he said to him, “Follow me.”  Peter turned and saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following them; he was the one who had reclined next to Jesus at the supper and had said, “Lord, who is it that is going to betray you?” When Peter saw him, he said to Jesus, “Lord, what about him?” Jesus said to him, “If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you? Follow me!”  So the rumor spread in the community that this disciple would not die . Yet Jesus did not say to him that he would not die, but , “If it is my will that he remain until I come , what is that to you?” John 21:18–23  His last u...
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