Part 2 of this series

I split the titular question into two questions to illustrate how Pulliam (and amillennialists in general) seem to have fallen for (and therefore perpetuate) the fallacy of the complex question: where they ask a loaded question that should be split into 2 questions in order to prevent potential answers from being problematic. The classic example is “Have you stopped beating your wife?”, where “yes” or “no” would be equally problematic because both would imply that the answerer did beat their wife at some point; it should be split into: “Have you ever beaten your wife? If so, have you now stopped doing this?” Amillennialists likewise ask: “Is Jesus reigning now?” as if it’s an all-or-nothing situation — presumably because they don’t realize there’s a spectrum of conceivable answers, rather than a simple yes-no binary.

As I first intimated at the start of this series, the position I hold is between the extremes Pulliam offers: I accept (as he does) 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 side — but I also hold (in contrast to Pulliam) 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. Let’s flesh this out more before dealing with Pulliam’s objections to Christ’s kingship being limited at present. Consider the following passages:

And I said, ‘Who are You, Lord?’ And the Lord said, ‘I am Jesus whom you are persecuting. But get up and stand on your feet; for this purpose I have appeared to you, to appoint you a minister and a witness not only to the things which you have seen, but also to the things in which I will appear to you; rescuing you from the Jewish people and from the Gentiles, to whom I am sending you, to open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the dominion of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who have been sanctified by faith in Me.’ (Acts 26:15-18 1995 NASB, boldface added)

This tells us that before Gentiles come to God, they are under the dominion of Satan. The Apostle John agreed: “We know that we are of God, and that the whole world lies in the power of the evil one.” (1 John 5:19 1995 NASB, boldface added) It’s not that they worship Satan, or are even necessarily on the track to Hell (after all, what about so-called “virtuous pagans” who haven’t heard the Gospel? or Gentiles who don’t yet understand right from wrong because they haven’t matured enough, e.g., infants?), but that their lives are lived under worldly authority, which has belonged to Satan ever since he tricked Adam and Eve out of their rightful place of having dominion over the earth (see Hebrews 2:5-8). I suspect this is one aspect of a technical term for Adam & Eve’s Fall that’s used in 10 NT verses: “the casting down of the world order” (καταβολῆς κόσμου, incorrectly rendered “the foundation of the world” in most English translations, due to the phrase never appearing in the LXX or earlier secular Greek literature, and thus being prone to being interpreted and translated in light of the reader’s preconceived notions — which, in many cases, both early on and down through church history to the present, were/are rooted in pagan Greek philosophical ideas).

For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. (Ephesians 6:12 1995 NASB, boldface added)

At first glance, this verse seems to have antiestablishment overtones (and some charismatics have tried to “take over” cities because they’ve taken that idea and ran with it). But the critical phrase here is “in the heavenly places”. Note that “places” is italicized, because it’s not actually in the Greek text: the Greek phrase is “ἐν τοῖς ἐπουρανίοις”, but since τοῖς is a definite article, ἐπουρανίοις is an adjective, and no noun is connected to it, the English translator must add a noun to make the phrase grammatically valid. As Tim Warner explains {scroll to Appendix C on p. 5-10 in the PDF}, most English translators add the word “places”, based on the fact that most lexicons follow the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (TDNT) in defining ἐπουράνιος (G2032, the base form of ἐπουρανίοις) as relating to the “highest heavens”. This definition was influenced by the amillennial bias (of the TDNT editors) toward the concept of Christians having a “heavenly destiny” (as Pulliam also believes); dispensationalists haven’t corrected their faulty definition because they depend on that same concept to prop up their own eschatological system (with its notion of the Jewish nation having an “earthly destiny”, and Christians having a “heavenly destiny”). But the fact is, despite their loud proclamations of following a “literal” hermeneutic, dispensationalists are stuck performing the same hermeneutical gymnastics as their amillennialist counterparts on several passages where this definition utterly clashes with the context. Warner gives a sampling of these passages in the same PDF I just linked to:

If we assume Kittle’s [the TDNT’s] definition, we are left with the following absurdities:

• • Matt. 18:35 (Majority Text & TR) violates Sharp’s 2^nd rule, making “The Father” synonymous with “the heaven” itself (“the Father heaven”).
  • Eph. 2:6 puts Paul and the entire church of Ephesus in heaven at the time he wrote to them, being seated snugly on the throne of God along with Jesus at the Father’s right hand.
  • Eph. 6:12 puts all the minions of hell in the highest heaven, where Paul and the Ephesians were allegedly seated beside Christ.
  • Heb. 11:16 claims that while Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were living in tents in the Land that God promised to give them as an age-enduring inheritance, they were instead longing for a city and inheritance in heaven. This contradicts both Genesis and the context of Hebrews 11. It makes the “promise” to Abraham (which both Genesis and Hebrews claim was the Promised Land inheritance) into a promise of a city in heaven, no hint of which can be found in the Genesis account.

{Scroll to p. 7 in the PDF, under “Appendix C: The meaning of “Heavenly” in Ephesians and Hebrews”. Boldface added}

The linguistic justification for the TDNT definition is that ἐπουράνιος is a compound of ἐπί (G1909) and οὐρανός (G3772). The latter word is the noun for “heaven”, while the former is a preposition to indicate superimposition or coverage, typically rendered “upon”, “over”, etc. The TDNT claimed that for this word, ἐπί acted as a superlative, yielding the sense of “highest heaven”, i.e., Heaven itself; but more recent scholarship has indicated that this prefix carries its usual meaning (superimposition, coverage) for this compound word, so the word instead refers to Heaven’s authority over things, i.e., the heavenly “sphere of influence”.

Now, if we go to every passage in the NT (and even the LXX) where ἐπουράνιος is translated as “heavenly places” and replace it with “heavenly dominions” (or in the case of Hebrews 11:16, replace “heavenly one/country” with “heavenly dominion”), something incredible happens: all the absurdities vanish, and every sentence that made sense before still makes sense! Warner showcases some examples of this on p. 8-10 of the PDF linked to above, and one of them is Ephesians 6:12.

So, finally returning to that verse: “For our struggle is… against the rulers, against the powers [or “authorities”; G1849], against the world forces [κοσμοκράτορας, the accusative plural masculine form of G2888, literally meaning “world-rulers”] of this darkness [Thayer explained that the phrase “τοὺς κοσμοκράτορας τοῦ σκότους τούτου” (“the world-rulers of this darkness”) is an epithet for the demons, including Satan], against the spiritual forces of wickedness, in the heavenly dominions.” I added that last comma in an attempt to clarify that the phrase “in the heavenly dominions” is acting as a qualifier for everything listed before it (not just “the spiritual forces of wickedness”). Far from being antiestablishment, this verse limits the scope of Christians practicing spiritual warfare to domains that are already under Christ’s authority — the important implication for us, of course, being that some things (particularly, most rulers and authorities; after all, rulers and authority figures who happen to be Christians should be on the same side as their fellow Christians in this spiritual war!) are presently not under his authority!

For He rescued [literally, “Who rescued”] us from the domain [literally, “the authority”] of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son [literally, “of the Son of His love”]. (Colossians 1:13 1995 NASB, boldface added)

This is another clear statement that things that are under the authority of darkness are not under the authority of Christ.

You are from God, little children, and have overcome them; because greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world. They are from the world; therefore they speak as from the world, and the world listens to them. We are from God; he who knows God listens to us; he who is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error. (1 John 4:4-6 1995 NASB, boldface added)

Again, Christians are under the authority of Christ now, but unbelievers are under the authority of the world — which, as we saw above, is under Satan’s dominion.

As if that’s not enough, the epistle to the Hebrews often talked about Christ’s kingly duties and priestly duties. And as I point out in my upcoming book:

in Hebrews, Jesus’ priestly duties or functions are talked about as past or present (e.g., Hebrews 4:14-15; 8:1-3; 9:11-14, 23-25) but his kingly duties or functions are talked about as future (e.g., Hebrews 1:13; 2:5-10); see especially Hebrews 10:12-13. {HIDMF p. ###. Boldface and italics in original.}

Pulliam has a proof-text against this point, which I deal with in the first half of another post {I’ll link to it once it’s uploaded}. But there’s also a thing or two hiding in the Greek text of Hebrews 10:12-13: “And He, for sin one sacrifice having offered — to the end, did sit down on the right hand of God, — as to the rest, expecting till He may place his enemies as his footstool” (YLT, underlining added). Before I expound on the underlined phrases, note that these 2 verses bear out the quote I just gave from my book: “for sin one sacrifice having offered” refers to a past action pertaining to Christ’s priesthood, “expecting” is a present action pertaining to Christ’s current position, and “till He may place his enemies as his footstool” is a future action pertaining to Christ’s kingship.

The second underlined phrase in Greek is the accusative singular neuter phrase “τὸ λοιπὸν”, which Thayer’s Greek Lexicon defines as follows: “left:… Neuter singular adverbially, τό λοιπόν what remains”. While Thayer categorized this instance under definition a, “hereafter, for the future, henceforth”, the sentence structure makes it more likely that definition c was intended by the author of Hebrews here: “τό λοιπόν, dropping the notion of time, signifies for the rest, besides, moreover (A. V. often finally), forming a transition to other things, to which the attention of the hearer or reader is directed” {boldface in original}. Thus, the author was telling us, first, that Jesus offered himself as a sacrifice for sins “unto the carry-through” [“εἰς τὸ διηνεκὲς”, the last word being διηνεκής (G1336), a compound of διά (G1223, a preposition meaning “through”) and an aorist form of φέρω (G5342, a verb meaning “bear” or “carry”), emphasizing an action occurring at a point in time] — the first underlined phrase, which most other translations render “forever” or “for all time” — but the “carry-through” of what? Well, the author went on to say that after this sacrifice, Jesus sat down at God’s right side, awaiting “the remainder” until “He may place his enemies as his footstool”. Taken altogether, “the carry-through” refers to when the Father would carry out His promise to give His Son “the remainder” of what he was promised to inherit (i.e., the phrases in Psalm 110 that haven’t been fulfilled yet). Since this wouldn’t happen “till” Jesus’ enemies would be subjugated to him, these verses must be referring to when Jesus’ authority will be expanded to include everything that’s presently outside of it.

Well, everything except for his Father, per 1 Corinthians 15:27 — “for all things He did put under his feet, and, when one may say that all things have been subjected, it is evident that He is excepted who did subject the all things to him” (YLT, boldface added)! Pulliam might try to counter that the first verb (“He did put”) being in the aorist tense and indicative mood (which is normally equivalent to the English simple past tense) indicates that everything being put under Jesus’ feet is something that had already happened when Paul wrote it. But note the remark shortly before this verse that “it behoveth him to reign till he may have put all the enemies under his feet” (verse 25c YLT, boldface added), where “may have put” is translated from the two words “ἄν θῇ”; the former word in the latter phrase, (G302) indicates “a supposition, wish, possibility or uncertainty” {Scroll to “Strong’s Definitions”}, and the latter is in the subjunctive mood, which indicates “possibility and potentiality”. Either of these facts alone would be enough to establish that Jesus’ enemies being “put… under his feet” was still future from when Paul wrote this (and this sheer redundancy may explain why the NT critical texts of this verse follow manuscripts that have θῇ, but not ἄν)! The fact that the Greek word for “one may say” (εἴπῃ) in verse 27 is also in the subjunctive mood reinforces the conclusion that the aorist indicative verb Young rendered “He did put” was past-tense from the perspective of the future time when the possibility indicated by the 3 words just discussed would be realized. You could capture the sense using the English “future perfect” tense: “for all things He will have subjected under his feet…”

So, what else is under Christ’s authority at present? What’s my justification for including “Christian institutions, such as Christian households, churches, seminaries, parachurch organizations, etc.” in the summary at the start of this post, and not just Christians themselves? I’ll save that for the next post, since one of Pulliam’s proof-texts against what I’ve laid out here provides me with a golden opportunity to explain it.