It is well-known among our small circle of Reformed Baptists that I take some exception to the statement of 1689 26:4 which asserts “… the Pope of Rome … is that antichrist, that man of sin and son of perdition, that exalteth himself in the church against Christ and all that is called God; whom the Lord shall destroy with the brightness of his coming.” Let me explain my position.
For Amillennialism, “the thousand-year reign” is brought about by the events of Christ’s first advent.
If you mean by rapture a pretribulational rapture, then we believe in no such thing. But the term rapture is derived from the Latin translation of the words, ‘caught up,’ in 1 Thessalonians 4:17. Thus, since the Bible speaks of a rapture, the real question is, What does it mean by the rapture? It simply means the catching up of the living saints at Christ’s Second Coming.
Recently, I spoke at a conference on the subject of my recent book by Free Grace Press, The Doctrine of Last Things: An Optimistic Amillennial View. Following up my lectures on the “Two Ages” (See my book, chapters 3-5.), there was a Q&A in which I answered questions submitted in writing before the Q&A.
Chapter 9 of the Confession teaches the important biblical doctrine of the total inability of fallen man to do anything spiritually good. Still, this teaching has been widely denied. In this blog, I want to address those objections.
Though the Confession affirms free will, it affirms the kind of free will that is compatible with the idea that this free will is incapable of any spiritual good.
Free will is not a faculty for making random decisions. Such a view actually destroys any meaningful free will.
Against some “Calvinists” (both contemporary and in the past), we must affirm the free will of man. But we must, while affirming it, also carefully and biblically define it.
Propitiation is the focus of the atonement.
The description of Christ’s atoning work as obedience is a powerful argument for the necessity of double imputation and the active obedience of Christ in a day in which both are widely denied.