Five years ago, a brother hinted that if I wanted to know what was going on in the ‘real world’, I should read the business pages less, and follow politics more. My lifelong interest has always been theology; I am interested in connecting general and specific revelation, and how the end is declared from the beginning. And so, despite some concerns about the lingo and vocabulary of the laws of the various lands, I took my brother’s advice. I was immediately intrigued by this new-found interest, and to my surprise, I soon found out that the concepts I ran across were quite familiar.
What is the mystery which Revelation 17:5 and 7 reveal? Does the mystery refer to the title of the woman (“Mystery Babylon the Great”; NKJV) or is the name of the woman “Babylon the Great”, about which Revelation 17 reveals a mystery (cf. NASB)? And if so, what is the mystery?
A common argument against the doctrine of the rapture is that it is a new teaching and, so the argument goes, because it is new, it cannot be true (cf. Ladd 1956:31). Du Rand (2007:317) writes that teaching about the rapture only gained momentum after 1830 when the dreams of a certain Margaret MacDonald were revealed. But is teaching about the rapture new, or is it rather old? Is something true or false because it is old or new?
The rapture is neither a secret nor something mysterious, but rather a New Testament mystery that God revealed almost 2000 years ago. South African theologians such as Snyman (1940:83-87), Oosthuizen (1963) and Malan (2014:251-266) did not think that the rapture was a secret. However, if people think that the Church is Israel or some other group of Old Testament saints, then teaching about the rapture may remain, ironically, a mysterious secret to them.
Augustine, the father of amillennialism, was influenced by the philosophy of Plato. What did Plato teach? How does this Greek philosophy compare with God’s Word, specifically regarding the doctrine of the kingdom? Is the kingdom of God only spiritual?
