What is Naturalistic Eschatology?

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jerusalemThe Eschatology Today teaching article  Parables, Anointings, Visions, and Dreams provides a systematic theology of the Holy Spirit’s teaching modes and discusses the importance of receiving the Baptism of the Holy Spirit to more fully understand the revelation of John’s very charismatic text. Receiving the baptism of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:4), which can open the spiritual gateway to the revelation gifts of God’s Spirit, is one key to understanding the Bible’s visionary texts. I say just one key in that article when admitting this subsequent-to-salvation spiritual infilling hasn’t proven often enough to make sense out of Revelation’s text. The missing ingredient? Hermeneutics. It seems a lack of one without the other has most prophetic interpretations laying in the same ditch.

The Holy Spirit and His manifestations, visions and dreams included, are supernatural manifestations. They can’t be initiated or spiritually understood in the realm of the natural, because they are above (super), and not limited to the natural. A supernatural view of Scripture, including eschatology, believes in the continuing miraculous works of God. The introduction of Dispensationalism over the years into a more natural view of Scripture has minimized and even stopped (at the death of the last apostle) the supernatural manifestations of God through rationale and reason. One result of this line of thinking is what I call, Naturalistic Eschatology. Naturalistic Eschatology interprets the supernatural interventions of God revealed in the prophetic scriptures as being the natural work of man.

More specifically, by rejecting the miraculous in prophecy, the naturalistic eschatologian interprets Revelation’s dynamic trumpet and bowl judgments as thermonuclear war. Nuclear weapons are supplemented in this eschatology for God’s supernatural wrath.

In truth, it should be really no more difficult to discern the miraculous of God in the Book of Revelation, than it is in the15 Angel with Small Scroll book of Exodus when reading of His miraculous interventions in the Hebrew-Egyptian Exodus. In fact, the key word connections in Exodus and Revelation’s plagues show an astounding typology that could prove John’s revelation was given to show God’s ultimate exodus from the bondage of Satan to God’s heavenly promised land that Egypt and Goshen historically typed. You can really overdo the types and shadows of the Old Testament, but an intelligent appraisal of them can show how God revealed  history in advance (Matt. 24:25). Study the following comparison study passages and draw your own conclusions.

Remember, the heremeneutic science of key word observation[1] can connect key words and events through the prophetic record. Words such as “Coming,” “Mystery,” “Trumpet,” “First,” “Last,” “Abomination of Desolation,” “Day of the Lord,” “Tribulation,” “Great Tribulation,” “Earthquake,” “Half,” “One Third,” “All,” “Then,” and “Now,” will perceptively repeat themselves to define and even time key eschatological events. Here is another opportunity. Because Eschatology Today is dedicated to giving you the tools for personal Bible study, I am only providing an outline. So please get your Bibles and follow along.

Trumpet/Bowl /Hebrew/Egyptian

Exodus Comparison Study

13 Seven Angels, Seven TrumpetsTrumpet 1: (8:7) Hail and Fire mixed with blood: Destroys 1/3 of the earth & trees–ALL of grass. Compare to Hebrew/Egyptian Exodus 7th plague: Exodus 9:13-35.

Bowl 1: (16:2) Loathsome malignant sores for those receiving the mark of the beast. Compare to Hebrew/Egyptian Exodus 6th plague of boils and sores: Exodus 9:9-11.

Trumpet 2: (8:8) Mountain “burning like fire” turns 1/3 of the sea into blood; 1/3 of creatures in it die; 1/3 ships are destroyed. Compare to Hebrew/Egyptian Exodus 1st plague: Exodus 7:14-24.

Bowl 2: (16:3) “Sea” becomes blood; “every” living thing in it dies. Compare to Hebrew/Egyptian 1st plague: Exodus 7:14-24.

Trumpet 3: (8:10) A great star, “Wormwood,” falls into 1/3 of the rivers and springs, poisoning “many” men. See Jeremiah 9:13-15 for Wormwood reference. No Exodus plague type.

Bowl 3: (16:4) Springs of water become blood. Compare to Hebrew/Egyptian Exodus 1st plague: Exodus 7:14-24.

Trumpet 4: (8:12) 1/3 Sun 1/3 Moon 1/3 stars “smitten” so both day & night are shortened by 1/3. Compare to Hebrew/Egyptian Exodus 9th plague of darkness: Exodus 10:21,22.

Bowl 4: (16:8) Poured upon the sun so it scorches men with fire. No plague type.

Trumpet 5: (9:13) Scorpion/locust like horsemen FROM THE ABYSS sting and torment men without AngelbowlsGod’s seal for a period of 5 months. Compare Hebrew/Egyptian Exodus 8th plague of locusts: Exodus 10:1-20.

Bowl 5: (16:10) Poured upon beast’s throne. They gnaw their teeth in pain, and blaspheme without repenting for their horrible pains and sores. Compare Hebrew/Egyptian Exodus 6th plague of boils and sores: Exodus 9:9-11.

Trumpet 6: (9:13) Four angels who are “bound” at the Euphrates river released to kill 1/3 of mankind. Two hundred “million” horsemen whose horse?s heads look like “lions” spew out of their mouth fire, smoke and brimstone kill 1/3 of mankind. Compare Hebrew/Egyptian Exodus 11th Death of first born plague: Exodus 11:5, 12:29.

Bowl 6: (16:12) Poured out on the Euphrates, drying up its water to prepare the way for the kings of the east. No type: but compare parting of Red Sea: Exodus 14:21.

Trumpet 7: (11:15) “There shall be delay no longer…(10:6b). In the days of the voice of the seventh angel, the mystery of God is finished as He preached to His servants the prophets” (10:7). Twenty-four elders fall down worshiping saying: The Kingdom of the world has become of “our Lord”; “Thou hast taken Thy great power and didst reign”; “nations were enraged, your wrath came, and the time for the dead to be judged, and to give their reward to your bond-servants, prophets and saints and to those who fear Thy name, and to destroy those who destroy the earth”; Temple of God in heaven opened; ark of covenant appears with flashes of lightning and peals of thunder, an earthquake and great hail storm. No type. Last trumpet blown in Revelation.

Bowl 7: (16:7) Battle of Armageddon! Flashes of lightning, sounds and peals of thunder, great earthquake, huge hailstones, plague of hail, mountains and islands flee away; Babylon judged.

[1] Read archived site articles “Interpreting the Rules of Revelation” and “Searching for Key Words the Inductive Way.”

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