SEVEN CHURCHES OR SEVEN CHURCH AGES? - By JohnH.Balk

Scripture Reading: Revelation 1:4

 ... For THE TIME IS AT HAND, John to the seven churches which are in Asia" (Revelation 1:3 & 4). I take this to mean that John wrote to seven literal Hebrew churches (synagogues). John names and locates them. This would not be hard to believe, except for the church Fathers and tradition who say this cannot be. They date this prophecy between A.D. 90 and 96. Their appeal is to history and the fathers and not to the Word itself. This would be some twenty to twenty-five years after the overthrow of Jerusalem. By this time, the churches of Asia had been thoroughly Judaized. " ... all they which be in Asia be turned away from me" (II Timothy 1:15). This was A.D. 68. Ifthis book was written after Acts 28:28, then all is confusion and contradiction: it simply does not fit in. If Paul had preached the gospel of the grace of God to these churches, and John some twenty or thirty years later exhorts them in the gospel of the kingdom, John contradicts Paul. But if John wrote to these synagogues about A.D. 43-45, just before the Jerusalem Council, all is in harmony, (except

If in II Corinthians 12:2, the man in Christ above fourteen years ago was John and not Paul, talking about himself, it would date this prophecy about A.D. 43, just before the Jerusalem Council and contemporary with Matthew, Mark, James and Jude. John would be a young man in the Isle of Patmos for the Word of God (Revelation 1:9). He was still to "prophesy ... before many peoples" (Revelation 10:11). He was admonished not to write the things that he heard (Revelation 10:4 confer with II Corinthians 12:4). Prophecy has a near and a future fulfillment. The overthrow of the temple under Titus would be the near fulfillment. The future fulfillment awaits the Rapture of the Church, when God resumes His prophetic kingdom purpose with Israel. Think about it. The Church, which is Christ's Body, is nowhere seen in this book in type or symbol.

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