Introduction of this series
I think the titular question of this post deserves an answer. I’ve seen countless bogus arguments online over the years, and managed to save my breath on a decent percentage of them. Why should this book be among the remainder?
Well initially, my main reason for publishing a blog series on this book, “In the Days of Those Kings: A 24 Lesson Adult Bible Class Study on the Error of Dispensationalism” {2015. Houston, TX: Book Pillar Publishing.}, is that I’ve attended two Sunday worship services and a Wednesday night Bible class that the author — Charlotte Church of Christ evangelist Bob Pulliam — preached at. And the congregation at large seems like it’s comprised of decent people who sincerely desire to live according to the truth; aside from Pulliam himself, they were very welcoming of me! So I feel bad that Pulliam doesn’t allow debate in his congregation, thereby depriving these wonderful people of the opportunity to hear what he’s getting wrong. Ironically, when I repeated Pulliam’s words to me on this – “we can debate this; just not in the church” — to Russ McCullough, pastor at the Archdale Church of Christ, he said: “Oh, please! Paul regularly debated people in the synagogues to correct their errors.” (And lest Pulliam think that this feature of ancient synagogues doesn’t carry over to Christian assemblies, “synagogue” comes from the Greek word συναγωγή (G4864), meaning “assembly”, just like the usual word for “church”, ἐκκλησία (G1577); indeed, James 2:2 uses συναγωγή with reference to the Christian assembly!)
Now, allow me to clarify right off the bat that the position being criticized in this book, traditional dispensationalism, is not the position I maintain (and was not at the time Pulliam handed me my copy). So right off the bat, we can see that his claim that he was giving me “a book that explains why you’re wrong” — yes, those were his exact words — is off-base. When I pointed this out to him, he told me that the arguments I was using were “things that a dispensationalist would say.” Maybe dispensationalists would say such things, but that doesn’t mean I’m in their camp on everything else! Indeed, amillennialists seem very prone to this error: they give arguments disproving dispensationalism in particular, and think that in doing so, they’ve disproven premillennialism in general! (Indeed, even McCullough, who I quoted above, often teaches against ideas specific to dispensationalism, but, to my annoyance, calls it “premillennialism” when doing so. He once defended this dangerous mislabeling to me by saying “I need to use terms most people are familiar with”. However, this fails to account for the fact that every Church Father of the first and second centuries — people who lived within living memory of the Apostle John’s ministry — who said anything about eschatology held to a teaching known as “chiliasm” — more colloquially called the “Millennial Week” — which is explicitly premillennial!)
I’ve also read how Pulliam explains away the “first resurrection” and its implication of a second resurrection in his book {p. 258-261}; he has to do this because he believes there will only be one future resurrection of the dead. Actually, he outright redefines the word “resurrection” to not require a physical body {p. 148}, despite the Greek word, ἀνάστασις (G386), meaning “a standing up again”; the “again” part implies that they’ll return to a state they’d previously been in! Is Pulliam willing to argue that Christians have already been totally immaterial spiritual beings, just to maintain the appropriateness of saying they’ll become such beings “again”? My upcoming book contains further discussion on the etymology of words for “resurrection” and the fact that most ancient Jews believed the dead would be resurrected bodily {HIDMF p. #, #; I’ll come back and add the page numbers to these posts once it’s published}. It’s getting pretty easy to see why Tim Warner says of amillennialists: “allegory is their default hermeneutic”! {Scroll to p. 7 of the PDF} Indeed, symbolism seems to be Pulliam’s “on-off switch” (and that of preterists and amillennialists in general, for that matter!) in precisely the same way that he calls dual fulfillment (or, to use his phrasing, “double reference”) the on-off switch for dispensationalists {p. 31} — they flip the switch to “on” in some passages and “off” in others, with no hermeneutical justification for which passages get which setting (i.e., they’re flip-flopping arbitrarily to suit their preconceived notions)! And, as I mention in my book {HIDMF p. #}, you can explain away darn near any not-yet-fulfilled prophecy just by claiming that an otherwise-unfulfilled detail symbolizes something else that has happened. Indeed, full preterists do exactly that to claim that every prophecy in the Bible was fulfilled by A.D. 70!
In contrast, I interpret the Bible in a straightforward fashion: where words carry their literal meanings unless the context (or in cases where God concealed the meaning at the time, later revelation shedding light on earlier revelation; e.g., Hosea 6:2 in light of John 7:2,10,33-37 & the doctrine of chiliasm, as I explain in Appendix D of my book) suggests otherwise. While we take this rule for granted in our everyday spoken and written language, many Bible translators make the mistake of ignoring this rule in several places due to what I call “translational inertia”: where Bible translators don’t fix an erroneous translation of a word in a particular passage because the erroneous rendering is so generally-accepted and ingrained in Christendom at large (and, of course, has been critical to the interpretations of so many expositors), that they know such a change to a word or phrase that’s been there for so many decades (or in most cases, centuries!) can be controversial enough to cause bad reviews and hurt their sales numbers (of course, I don’t care how controversial my corrections might be; all I care about is the truth!). Some prime examples occur with the words ψυχή (G5590) and πνεῦμα (G4151), often rendered by their more figurative/abstract meanings (“soul” and “spirit”, respectively) in contexts where their literal meanings (“life” and “breath”, respectively) would work just fine. This is presumably one reason Pulliam has gotten away with teaching his congregation (trust me, I’ve personally witnessed him doing so) that Ezekiel 37:1-14 has no future fulfillment in a bodily resurrection of the dead — Hebrews 4:12, if translated in a straightforward, word-by-word manner, blatantly proves otherwise: “For living is the Word of God [i.e., Jesus], and active, and sharper beyond any double-edged knife [used to expose every part of an animal when processing it for food], and penetrating until the distribution of life and of breath and of joints and of sinews, and is a judge of thoughts and sentiments of the heart.” The word for “until” is ἄχρι (G891), which refers to the time intervening before something happens — it’s never used for distance or extent. The word usually rendered “dividing”, “division”, or “separation” is μερισμός (G3311), which actually means “distribution” (think “dividing the spoils”); “distribution(s)” also works on all 3 of the other occasions this word appears in the Greek Bible — Hebrews 2:4, where most translations render the plural form of the word as “gifts”; Joshua 11:23 LXX, referring to when “Joshua gave them by inheritance Israel [i.e., the land of Israel, per the first part of the verse], by distribution according to their tribes” (my word-for-word translation of “ἔδωκεν αὐτοὺς Ἰησοῦς ἐν κληρονομίᾳ Ισραηλ ἐν μερισμῷ κατὰ φυλὰς αὐτῶν”); & Ezra 6:18 LXX, referring to “the Levites in their distributions on the basis of service of the God in Jerusalem” (my word-for-word translation of “τοὺς Λευίτας ἐν μερισμοῖς αὐτῶν ἐπὶ δουλείᾳ θεοῦ τοῦ ἐν Ιερουσαλημ”). So while Pulliam claims Ezekiel’s “Valley of Dry Bones” vision was fulfilled in the return from the Babylonian exile and has no future fulfillment, Hebrews 4:12 referred to “the distribution of life and of breath and of joints and of sinews” (a blatant reference to Ezekiel’s “Valley of Dry Bones” vision) as something that was still in the future from when the epistle to the Hebrews was written! The only reason this isn’t blatant in English is because the underlined phrase in this paragraph is persistently mistranslated due to translational inertia.
Now, while Pulliam seems careful in his book not to explicitly call himself an amillennialist, he evidently sides with them at least on a distinction he draws between dispensationalism & amillennialism in Lesson 1 of his book:
Dispensationalists tell us that Jesus is the Christ, but are still awaiting His ascension to the throne of David. Amillennialists contend that Jesus has ascended to the throne of David, and rules in heaven over a kingdom comprised of the hearts of men. Is He a King in waiting, or a King in realization of fulfilled prophecy? You must decide. {p. 11}
So right in the introduction to his book, we already have a false dichotomy — undoubtedly due to the fact that nearly all of Christendom (“nearly” being the operative word) holds to some form of either dispensationalism or amillennialism, probably not even realizing there are any alternatives!
As you may have guessed (I never actually make my position on this explicit in my book), my position on Christ’s kingship status is between the two that Pulliam presents as the only two possibilities: I accept that Jesus is the Christ, is currently in heaven, and has authority and is ruling over Christians’ hearts (as well as Christian institutions, such as Christian households, churches, seminaries, parachurch organizations, etc.) now at the Father’s right hand — but that upon his return, he will ascend to David’s throne and rule over the earth (including governments, societies, etc.) for 1,000 years before handing the Kingdom back to the Father for the rest of eternity. I’ll give Biblical exposition on this view later in this series {add hyperlinks to relevant posts when ready}.
This is similar (if not identical) to what Pulliam calls the “‘already-not yet’ concept.” {p. 106} He lists an entire table of verses on p. 107 where some refer to Christ’s kingdom as present & others refer to it as future (although his remark on 1 Corinthians 15:24 is erroneous, as he claims that passage mentions the kingdom as present and future; the verse just before this one places everything in verses 24-28 after Jesus’ παρουσία (parousia; G3952), which must be still future, as this word referred to a visit from a ruler or official, which requires the ruler himself to be physically present — so much for the preterist idea that Jesus’ parousia was his non-physical presence at Jerusalem’s second destruction!) — only to dismiss these distinctions (without even trying to reconcile the present-vs-future distinctions with his own view!) with the claim that “To say that there is a future, earthly kingdom of Christ, assumes that these texts refer to a kingdom upon this earth.… No passages implying a future kingdom even hint at that kingdom being on earth.” {p. 108. Italics and boldface in original.}
Pulliam makes a good case that all the erroneous doctrines of traditional dispensationalism can be undercut by refuting their view of a single starting premise: namely, the time range over which the Abrahamic Covenant was to be fulfilled {p. 21}. It’s ironic, then, that most of Pulliam’s views on eschatology can also be undercut by refuting a single starting premise: the idea that the future kingdom of Christ will be in heaven, not on earth. I can bring up one verse that conclusively disproves this assumption. As long as Pulliam told me he typically uses the NASB (indeed, the Scripture quotations in his book are all from the 1995 NASB), why don’t I quote that version of this verse, including its margin note? “For He did not subject to angels the world [literally, “the inhabited earth”] to come, concerning which we are speaking.” (Hebrews 2:5, boldface added) The Greek word for “world” here is οἰκουμένη (G3625), which means “inhabited earth” or “inhabited land”. This word has physical land built into its definition! I have yet to see ANYONE reconcile a “heavenly destiny” for Christians with the use of this word in Hebrews 2:5 (let alone cogently and conclusively).
With this, we see that, contrary to Pulliam’s insistence, the eternal Kingdom of God will be on the physical earth we inhabit now. This is also borne out by 2 Peter 3:13 referring to the end result of the judgment by fire as “new heavens and a new earth”, with “new” being the Greek word καινός, which refers to freshness, not youth (as I explain in my book {HIDMF p. #}, the fire that burns the heavens and the earth — verses 10 & 12 — doesn’t annihilate them, but rather purifies them); moreover, when Peter said “we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth” (verse 13b KJV, boldface added), the “promise” in question had been recorded in Isaiah 65-66 (65:17 & 66:22 LXX use καινός, too!), which makes it abundantly clear that this “new earth” will be a physical one in which “flesh” dwells1 (66:23-24)! As if all that isn’t enough, Jesus himself strongly implied that his Kingdom would be on Earth at the start of the Sermon on the Mount: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.… Blessed are the gentle, for they shall inherit the earth.” (Matthew 5:3,5 1995 NASB) There are only 2 ways that both of these Beatitudes could come true: either (a) the poor in spirit and the gentle (“meek” in most English translations) will have mutually-exclusive destinies (which makes one wonder about the fate of a Christian who displays both qualities!) or (b) the kingdom of heaven will be on the earth. Is anyone out there willing to mount a serious case for (a)? (I’d love to see someone try!)
It therefore is possible (indeed, certain in light of the Matthew and Hebrews verses), despite Pulliam’s insistence, for the participants in the Abrahamic Covenant (which includes Christians, not just Jews, per Galatians 3:14-18; see {HIDMF p. #} for further explanation) to have access to the land promised to Abraham for the rest of eternity.
But while that may be the most glaring problem with the eschatology outlined in “In the Days of Those Kings”, and all the flip-flopping between literal and allegorical interpretation regardless of how each text’s context would have us take it is the most pervasive problem, neither of these is actually the most serious problem. For a handful of weeks I was considering following church practices more strictly, by being respectful and limiting my harshness when trying to persuade him of his errors as a brother in Christ. But I changed my mind about that when I came across a statement Pulliam wrote that tells me he’s actually preaching against Christ — by teaching an outright heresy!
Paul says that we will not only be raised from the dead, but we shall also be changed in an instant. We will not be physical, or mortal. We will be immortal. Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, so we will obviously be spiritual beings. This agrees with John’s description of that great day when “we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him just as He is.” Although Jesus was raised in the flesh, He was glorified before ascending to the Father. That state to which we shall be transported is far beyond anything that our mortal minds can imagine. Paul also described it as a transformation that will bring our humble state into conformity “with the body of His glory.” On that day, all that once held substance will be gone and the unseen realities of the spiritual realm will endure. Judgment will commence for both righteous and wicked. {p. 148-149. Italics added}
…logically, if we are to be changed in seeing Him (I John 3:2), then He must no longer be flesh and blood. Otherwise, no change would be necessary. In reverse, if we are to become imperishable in our change (I Corinthians 15:51-53), then Jesus must have already undergone this change for us to become “like Him” (I John 3:2). {p. 148, fn 27. Italics added.}
Now, anyone who knows me can attest that I hardly ever accuse anyone of “heresy”, precisely because it’s such a strong word, and I’d rather give people the benefit of the doubt on their motives. But in this case, the Apostle John himself, in the very letter that Pulliam quotes here, strongly condemned anyone who teaches that Jesus isn’t in the flesh now:
By this you know the Spirit [literally, “Breath”] of God: Every spirit [literally, “breath”] that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God, and every spirit [literally, “breath”] that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God. And this is the spirit [literally, “is that”] of the Antichrist, which you have heard was coming, and is now already in the world. (1 John 4:2-3 NKJV, boldface and underlining added)
Each instance of the verb for “has come” in verses 2 & 3 is a perfect-tense active participle, indicating a past completed action resulting in a present state. So John was here condemning anyone who didn’t teach that Jesus had come in the flesh, or still was in the flesh when John wrote this decades after Jesus’ ascension! Moreover, the phrase “this is that of the Antichrist” becomes especially pointed when you consider that in Koine Greek, the prefix “anti-“ didn’t mean “against” (as we generally use it today), but “instead of” or “in place of”, having connotations of substitution or exchange {“Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics: An Exegetical Syntax of the New Testament”. Wallace, Daniel B. 1996. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Academic. 364-368.}. Thus, the Apostle John not only branded an idea that Pulliam built his view of the believer’s destiny on as a heresy, but claimed that anyone who teaches that idea is preaching an alternative (i.e., counterfeit) Christ! In fact, John wrote the verses I just quoted to call out one of Christianity’s earliest ideological enemies: Gnosticism! And anyone who’s studied the first couple centuries of church history would recognize many of the ideas in the paragraph I just quoted from p. 148-149 of “In the Days of Those Kings” as being eerily reminiscent of Gnostic beliefs! Indeed, when I quoted some of the things Pulliam said to me in person to McCullough, he beat me to this point by interjecting: “He almost sounds like a Gnostic”. (Also, this is slightly off-topic, but when I talked on the phone with a friend of mine who’d spent the last year or so studying the history of the Jehovah’s Witnesses and their doctrines — he feels called to reach out to them with the truth — and I paraphrased a statement of Pulliam’s about the time gap between the 69th & 70th weeks of Daniel 9 {once the hyperlink to this future post is here, I’ll try to link to the quote from p. 167 specifically} — I couldn’t find the actual quote during the phone call — as “the only reason for thinking there’s a time gap here is because dispensationalism demands it”, he chuckled: “He sounds like a Jehovah’s Witness!”)
Wow. With the points I’ve brought up in this post alone, the majority of the arguments in Pulliam’s book collapse upon their foundation of false premises! But as implied above, it isn’t really sufficient for me to just show Scriptural passages that refute my opponent’s position. I must also show how the passages he offers to support his own position don’t contradict mine; otherwise, neither of us has been established as teaching the truth. And so, most if not all of the remainder of this series will be spent doing just that (but if you haven’t already, check the Footnote of this post for one example).
P.S.: Debate Challenge
If Bob Pulliam still thinks his understanding of eschatology is correct after reading this series of blog posts (and, ideally, at least Appendices D & E of my upcoming book), and continues to think (as he said to my face that fateful Wednesday night) that I’m “not qualified to teach about this”, then let him try showing me up in a public debate. I’m still relatively new to the Charlotte area, but McCullough has already suggested a couple of possible debate venues!
- Pulliam tries to disprove this idea by partially quoting 1 Corinthians 15:50: “Now I say this, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.” (1995 NASB) However, the underlying Greek phrasing (“Τοῦτο δέ φημι, ἀδελφοί, ὅτι σὰρξ καὶ αἷμα βασιλείαν θεοῦ κληρονομῆσαι οὐ δύναται οὐδὲ ἡ φθορὰ τὴν ἀφθαρσίαν κληρονομεῖ.” — NA28, boldface added) doesn’t demand the conclusion Pulliam is trying to reach here. This sentence literally means: “But this I am saying, brethren, since flesh and blood doesn’t have power in itself to inherit the kingdom of God nor does the corruption inherit the incorruption.” Note that “inherit” is aorist active infinitive the first time, but present active indicative the second time; only the latter verb is a mere statement of fact. The phrase usually rendered “cannot”, οὐ δύναται, is the particle of absolute negation, followed by the present middle indicative 3rd-person singular form of G1410, the verb for “be able” or “have power” (the corresponding noun gave rise to English words like “dynamo”, “dynamic”, and “dynamite”). The indicative mood of this verb tells us it’s the statement of fact that “to inherit” is acting as a qualifier for, while the middle voice tells us the subject (“flesh and blood”) is both doing and receiving the action in some sense; overall, the idea is that flesh and blood can’t inherit the kingdom of God under its own power. This in no way rules out the possibility of God enabling flesh and blood to do so. Indeed, Paul could’ve easily conveyed that sense simply by writing G1410 in the passive voice, in which case the boldfaced phrase would mean “flesh and blood can’t be empowered (or “enabled”) to inherit the kingdom of God” — yet he didn’t. ↩︎