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Did you know that apostolic Christianity had spread to Britain by the end of the 1st century? That by the 5th century bishops were being appointed to oversee Christian churches as far east as Japan, Vietnam, and vast numbers in China, as well as Persia, India, Afghanistan , and Mongolia?
Venture south in the 2nd century and you would have found a thriving church in Ethiopia and Egypt. All these churches had the scriptures, all practised more or less the same primitive apostolic Christianity of the 1st century. All before the apostate Roman church had sent out one missionary.
Not to forget those stalwarts of faith that for centuries survived the papal persecutions such as the Albigenses, the Waldenses, and many others who were scattered throughout Europe doing all they could to stave off apostasy and heresy that was dominating the ecclesiastical monstrosity that was developing in Rome.
Christianity did not die in the 2nd century, nor at any time after that.
Yeah, that's not really historically documented.
Christianity is traditionally not seen as entering China until the seventh century, but I admit recent evidence might place it much earlier. There's some who argue Christianity arrived in Japan in the eighth century, but I don't think there's any evidence for it in the fifth. I don't know of any evidence of Christianity in Vietnam that early, exempting possibly some visitors who left little impact.
The kind of Christianity that entered East Asia early was Nestorian/Assyrian. Unless you are Nestorian or Assyrian you have, probably, less claim on those missionaries than us Catholics do. Nestorians and Assyrians are quite different than Baptists or any Protestants.
Albigensians were Catharists and also, even in Baptist successionism says otherwise, quite heterodox Christians. What we know they leaned toward Gnosticism and deemed the material world evil. They also appear to have rejected marriage and believed in reincarnation. What happened to them was bad, but they don't represent any kind of "early Protestantism."
Now if you are a Waldensian, Gnostic, or Assyrian Christian apologies.
When the temple fell in 70 AD, those who killed Christ, that is the apostate Israeli polity, "knew" it was because of their actions toward Jesus, that brought on this judgement.
Thank you for the long response. However, I did not find that it addressed my question.
If Christ did not come in clouds with His Angels to judge the earth, why did Christianity not fall apart?
After all, if you spiritualize every prophesy and every prophet in the same way, then you can never identify a false prophet, because there is always a chance that you either did not understand the prophesy correctly or did not see it fulfilled.
With respect to the Jerusalem temple destruction, I understand that the destruction was a retaliation by Romans for the attacks by the Jewish 'partisans'.
In the year 66 AD the Jews of Judea rebelled against their Roman masters. In response, the Emperor Nero dispatched an army under the generalship of Vespasian to restore order.
Btw, reading the Gospel accounts you'd never get the sense of the turmoil in the 1st century Palestine. Jesus is walking and healing and goes on the long journeys with the 12 while other historians (the real historians?) report a series of revolts against the Romans.
wolf has been cried so many times that those living in the end-times will not pay heed to warnings any more.. and this is something we can see every single day.. or at least some of us see
You are a part of crying wolf so if indeed the wolf criers have made a mockery of an end times reality, you are a part of the problem.
After all, if you spiritualize every prophesy and every prophet in the same way, then you can never identify a false prophet, because there is always a chance that you either did not understand the prophesy correctly or did not see it fulfilled.
After all, if you spiritualize every prophesy and every prophet in the same way, then you can never identify a false prophet, because there is always a chance that you either did not understand the prophesy correctly or did not see it fulfilled.
It is easy to spot straw man arguments. They usually contain "every, always and never." It reveals an ignorance and inability to establish the basis for making any discrimination. There is plenty of knowledge today from which to make the appropriate interpretations of scripture and prophecy. The all-or-nothing nonsense has no credibility.
Thank you for the long response. However, I did not find that it addressed my question.
If Christ did not come in clouds with His Angels to judge the earth, why did Christianity not fall apart?
Because He did come on the clouds with all his angels. That's why it did NOT fall apart, even though there has been much error, the sustaining truth founded on Christ has endured. Josephus first century historian writes:
Josephus (A.D. 75) - Jewish Historian
"Besides these [signs], a few days after that feast, on the one- and-twentieth day of the month Artemisius, [Jyar,] a certain prodigious and incredible phenomenon appeared; I suppose the account of it would seem to be a fable, were it not related by those that saw it, and were not the events that followed it of so considerable a nature as to deserve such signals; for, before sun-setting, chariots and troops of soldiers in their armour were seen running about among the clouds, and surrounding of cities. Moreover, at that feast which we call Pentecost, as the priests were going by night into the inner [court of the] temple, as their custom was, to perform their sacred ministrations, they said that, in the first place, they felt a quaking, and heard a great noise, and after that they heard a sound as of a great multitude, saying, "Let us remove hence" (Jewish Wars, VI-V-3).
“A supernatural apparition was seen, too amazing to be believed. What I am now to relate would, I imagine, be dismissed as imaginary, had this not been vouched for by eyewitnesses, then followed by subsequent disasters that deserved to be thus signalized. For before sunset chariots were seen in the air over the whole country, and armed battalions speeding through the clouds and encircling the cities.” (rendered in Chilton)
Tacitus (A.D. 115) - Roman historian
"13. Prodigies had occurred, but their expiation by the offering of victims or solemn vows is held to be unlawful by a nation which is the slave of superstition and the enemy of true beliefs. In the sky appeared a vision of armies in conflict, of glittering armour. A sudden lightning flash from the clouds lit up the Temple. The doors of the holy place abruptly opened, a superhuman voice was heard to declare that the gods were leaving it, and in the same instant came the rushing tumult of their departure. Few people placed a sinister interpretation upon this. The majority were convinced that the ancient scriptures of their priests alluded to the present as the very time when the Orient would triumph and from Judaea would go forth men destined to rule the world." (Histories, Book 5, v. 13).
Eusebius of Caesarea (A.D. 325)
"For before the setting of the sun chariots and armed troops were seen throughout the whole region in mid-air, wheeling through the clouds and encircling the cities" (Eusebius' Ecclesiastical History, Book 3, Ch. 8).
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After all, if you spiritualize every prophesy and every prophet in the same way, then you can never identify a false prophet, because there is always a chance that you either did not understand the prophesy correctly or did not see it fulfilled.
What other way is there? This is a faith, a religioin, based on the spirit. The prophets confirmed the nature is exact text and theme, the NT and thus the end of the age of the Mosaic order, was predicted, all in said language familliar to the times, and identical to the scriptures.
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With respect to the Jerusalem temple destruction, I understand that the destruction was a retaliation by Romans for the attacks by the Jewish 'partisans'.
Which is an instrument of God, hence the destruction of Mother Babylon, the apostate Jewish church by the hands of the Romans. This was all predicted in the prophets, clear as day.
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Btw, reading the Gospel accounts you'd never get the sense of the turmoil in the 1st century Palestine. Jesus is walking and healing and goes on the long journeys with the 12 while other historians (the real historians?) report a series of revolts against the Romans.
Because He did come on the clouds with all his angels.
But then we read this:
And then all the peoples of the earth will mourn when they see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory. And he will send his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other. (Matthew 24:30-31)
When did the above happen, Scio? When did ALL people of the earth see this great event 2,000 years ago and when (at that time) did angels show up to pluck all of the elect (supposedly Jews) from every corner of the globe?
And then all the peoples of the earth will mourn when they see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory. And he will send his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other. (Matthew 24:30-31)
When did the above happen, Scio? When did ALL people of the earth see this great event 2,000 years ago and when (at that time) did angels show up to pluck all of the elect (supposedly Jews) from every corner of the globe?
I already answered this in post #26 Ge - Land, not entire earth. And SEE, is rendered knowing with the mind, as in "seeing" with your conscience. A simple exegesis on the grammar used in scripture is clear as day.
I already answered this in post #26 Ge - Land, not entire earth. And SEE, is rendered knowing with the mind, as in "seeing" with your conscience. A simple exegesis on the grammar used in scripture is clear as day.
Ok, so to paraphrase:
All the people of the land will be enlightened and be conscious of the son of man coming in the clouds in great glory and with his angels.
What about the latter part about these angels gathering the elect?
Also, you say it is as clear as day, but let's be real here, what conclusion would someone come to just from the "clear as day" words written there?
All the people of the land will be enlightened and be conscious of the son of man coming in the clouds in great glory and with his angels.
What about the latter part about these angels gathering the elect?
Also, you say it is as clear as day, but let's be real here, what conclusion would someone come to just from the "clear as day" words written there?
Angels? You must remember there are many areas within the scriptures that denote "angels" as real people, specifically, God, or Christ's followers...i.e. His disciples. The elect, are none other than the Israel remnant who were saved under Christ during the transitional period between 30-70 when the circumcised and uncircumcised Israleites spread throughout the empire, inclusive of Israel, were brought back under one shepherd. In addition, it is not without significance, that this gathering of the saints in Matt 24:31, is preceded by the great sound or voice (marginal rendering) of a trumpet....think Jericho. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob heard "this" trumpet. It therefore signaled the universal gathering of saints from the uttermost part of the earth to the uttermost part of heaven, (Mk.13:27; 2 Thess.2:1; Heb.10:25), as well as the raising of the patriarchs and prophets from the dead, (Rom.4:16; Heb.11:39-40). This can be none other than the trump of God of 1 Thess.4:16, and the last trump of 1 Cor.15:52. If not, then do the scriptures teach two separate gatherings preceded by two universal trumpets? Why make them all the more confusing (a fact evidenced by the attempt to divide Matthew 24), by placing them both at a coming of Christ, a consummation of an age, a gathering together of the elect in the clouds, and an inheriting of the kingdom, (Matt.8:11-12, 24:3, 30-31, 34; 1 Cor.15:23-24, 50-52; 1 Thess.4:14-17)? It should be readily apparent that the trumpet is one and the same. Equally certain is the fact that Matthew 24 places the sounding of that trumpet at the fall of Jerusalem in A.D. 70, before that first-century generation passed, (Matt.24:31,34). Israel was raised, as a corporate body in faith, from the dead, and benefited the world. That's why Christianity never died. We have what was promised.
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