Tag: Day of the Lord

“At the end of the day”: Trump’s compromise

Donald Trump on abortion: 'It should be the law of the state'“The states will determine by vote, or legislation, or perhaps both, and whatever they decide must be the law of the land—in this case [abortion], the law of the state. Many states will be different. Many states will have a different number of weeks … at the end of the day it is all about the will of the people.” Donald Trump, Truth Social, today. (Emphasis added.)

“At the end of the day”? Say, when the sun goes down (as I once heard Bill O’Reilly quip)?

Trump’s context is, of course, the U.S. politics and Constitution, not eschatology. The end of the day (ἡμέρας) of man (ἀνθρωπίνης) (1 Corinthians  4:3), every detail of which having been ordained to come to pass (Ephesians 1:11), will inaugurate the day (ἡμέρας) of Christ (Χριστοῦ) (Philippians 1:6; not the Day of the Lord).

In that day, co-extensive with the manifest Kingdom of God, there will beThe mercy of God and the unborn child - St George Orthodox Ministry no exceptions for any species of homicide. The penalty will be death (Acts 5:1-11; the Acts period being a foretaste of the Kingdom[1]). God’s will, not “the people’s,” will be done, on earth, as it is in heaven (Matthew 6:10).

Note

[1] See my “Sellers’s Eschatology: Some Distinctives,” June 7, 2020.

Otis Q. Sellers on ἐκκλησία: his most distinctive theological distinctive? Introduction to a series.

When people first encounter Otis Q. Sellers’s writings, they learn he was virtually alone in holding that God’s global reign, the Kingdom for the coming of which He taught His disciples to pray, will be both future and premillennial.

That is, Christ’s “second coming,” His return to tabernacle among us again, to be present (παρουσία, parousia) because of who He is and what He is for a thousand years (the Millennium), is not His next move.[1] He will return before that Millennium but after that Kingdom has been operation.

His next move is the inauguration of His Kingdom (βασιλεία, basileia) on the Day of Christ (Χριστοῦ, Christou) (Philippians 1:6, 10), characterized by the Second, post-Pentecost Coming of the Holy Spirit.

After centuries of divine government, the Holy Spirit will lift His restraints to test all who have been living under it. He will permit a revolt (ἀποστασία, apostasia) (2 Thessalonians 2:1-3), which will initiate a time of pressure, testing, or “tribulation” (θλῖψις, thlipsis) for subjects of Israel’s restored Kingdom.

At His coming, Christ will crush that rebellion, marking the great and notable Day of the Lord (Κυρίου, Kyriou) (1 Thessalonians 5:2-5; Acts 2:20), the end of Israel’s 70 weeks (Daniel 9:27).

But that’s future. In the present, Christians work out their salvation with fear and trembling (Philippians 2:12), not only before Christ’s Parousia, but also before the coming of His Kingdom (no matter how soon it may come).

Almost without exception, Christians do this as members of societies called “churches.” Continue reading “Otis Q. Sellers on ἐκκλησία: his most distinctive theological distinctive? Introduction to a series.”