Status Updates From Paradise Restored: A Biblic...

Chapter 19: A Brief Summary of the Revelation

Revelation is not impossible to understand, but it is extraordinarily deep. One could easily fill multiple volumes exploring the book fully. Thus, this survey will be just that, a thousand foot flyover. The next few chapters will zoom in to cover important symbols within the book, but first, getting the lay of the whole land is necessary.

Chapter 17: Interpreting Revelation and Chapter 18: The Time Is at Hand

There are two problems that confront us when we seek to interpret the Book of Revelation: (1) What checks and controls should we use to ensure that we do not force God's Holy Word into a mold of our own inventions and (too often) our runaway imaginations? (2) What do we do then with what we have learned? These chapters seek to tackle the first.

Chapter 16: The Consummation of the Kingdom

The Last Day and the Last Judgment are synonyms. Biblically, they happen at the same time. This should be obvious, but there are only two resurrections: (1) Jesus as the firstfruits, and (2) the (simultaneous) Resurrection of both the righteous and the wicked on the Last Day (Dan 12:2; Jn 5:26-29; Acts 24:15; Rev 20:11-15).

Chapter 15: The Day of the Lord

Okay, so "the Last Days" are behind us, "The Great Tribulation" is behind us, "the Antichrist" is behind us, "Christ's coming on the clouds" is behind us... All were fulfilled in AD 70. Is there anything actually left to be fulfilled? And if so, how can we meaningfully distinguish it from all the stuff that has already happened?

Chapter 14: The Restoration of Israel

The last few chapters have been pretty bleak for the nation of Israel. They have by-and-large been excommunicated, cut off from the vine, and placed under cataclysmic judgment. But this presents us with a serious problem. What about God's promise to Abraham that the patriarch's seed would be established "throughout their generations, for an everlasting covenant" (Gen 17:7)?

Chapter 13: The Last Days

"The Last Days," "The Latter Times," and "The Last Hour," is the period between Jesus's Life and the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD. The Early Church was living at the end of the old age (the aready "obsolete" Old Covenant) and the beginning of the New (Heb 8:13).

Chapter 12: The Rise of the Antichrist

We tend to think of the Apostolic era as a golden age of healthy, explosive Church growth, and while this is substantially correct, we must also seek to do justice to the rampant outbreak of heresy and apostasy that accompanied it. One of Jesus's given indications for the Last Days was a dramatic rise in falling away and false teachers culminating in the great Apostasy.

Chapter 11: Coming on the Clouds

For most, what I've said so far sounds strange but fairly plausible on the surface (at least not heretical, I hope). Unfortunately, Matthew 24:29-31 just clearly doesn't work within the interpretation being offered here. It's really quite the insurmountable hurdle because isn't it obvious to anyone with eyes to see that none of what Jesus predicts in this passage has happened yet?

Chapter 10: The Great Tribulation

Scripture interprets Scripture. We must not seek for authoritative interpretations of Scripture's meaning anywhere outside the Bible itself. This to say, the Bible was not dropped from the sky in the twenty-first century. Now, with this in mind, let's tackle "The Great Tribulation." It's actually not that difficult to understand.

Chapter 9: The Rejection of Israel

The constantly used imagery of the people of God as a "vineyard" in both the OT and the NT has an obvious direct connection with the idea of the Garden. Israel was a garden planted, watered, and tended to by Yahweh (Ps 80; Is 5). This is an important concept when reading one of Jesus's most striking parables: the story of the Wicked Vinegrowers (Matt 21:33-39).

Chapter 8: The Coming of the Kingdom

The coming Kingdom of the Messiah was a major theme of the Psalms and the prophets. With the coming of Christ, that kingdom has arrived and is expanding across the world, just as Daniel prophesied when he foretold the Rock that would strike the feet of Rome and then grow into a world-consuming Mountain (Dan 2:35, 44).

Chapter 6: The Garden and the Howling Wilderness
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Chapter 7: The Fiery Cloud

Two for one this time! In the first, Chilton traces the themes of land, garden, exile, and wilderness through Scripture. In the second, he traces the theophany ("manifestation of God") of the Holy Spirit known as the glory cloud.

Chapter 5: The Garden of the Lord

This chapter continues the Edenic typological overview covering the topics of animals, trees, and food.

Chapter 4: The Holy Mountain

Though often conflated even by Scripture itself, Eden and Paradise (the Garden) are not entirely synonymous. Eden was a mountain ("The Holy Mountain of God"), and the Garden of Eden was placed on the eastern side of Mount Eden (Gen 2:8).

Chapter 3: The Paradise Theme

Eschatology precedes soteriology. That is to say, God never abandoned His original intent and trajectory for man, who will accomplish what he was first created to do. The story that began with humanity in Paradise on earth will reach its everlasting conclusion with the new humanity in consummated Paradise on earth.

Chapter 2: How to Read Prophecy

Isn't it amazing how those who proudly trumpet how "literally" they take the whole Bible get so very (speculatively) symbolic when they get to Revelation? Apache helicopters? The United Nations? Atomic bombs? How did I miss these when I read it through? In this chapter, Chilton argues that we need to read the Bible not "literally" but "literate-ly."

Chapter 1: The Hope

For the last century or so, Christian eschatologies have been predominantly characterized by a historical trajectory of despair, defeat, and retreat.