Rapture, Revelation, and the End Times - Conscious Evolution TV

What robin-bobin Does the Bible Say About the End Times? 93What do these passages mean? One viewpoint says that this isabout a theological argument among people living in biblicaltimes, and another viewpoint combines these passages withother Bible verses to see a prediction of an evil figure who willarise sometime in the future. Let’s briefly summarize each view.From the first perspective, many biblical scholars claim thatthe author or authors of the letters (I will call him John) wasinvolved in early Christian disagreements about who Jesus wasand how Christians ought to understand Jesus’ divinity. Nowthat Jesus was no longer living among them, his followers discoveredthat they had different ways of describing Jesus andhow he was related to God. For instance, some persons claimedthat Jesus only appeared to be human. Others said that Jesuswas born an ordinary human being and that the heavenly“Christ” later descended on Jesus at his baptism. The author of1 and 2 John was outraged by claims like this, and he was verycombative in opposing such teachings. More or less, the authorof the letters is saying that if you do not believe the properthings about Jesus, you are “antichristos,” or “against Christ.”Anyone who “denies the Father and the Son” is “the antichrist,”in other words, against Christ.Further, when the term “antichrist” was used in its variousforms (antichrist, the antichrist, antichrists), the verses in 1 and2 John appear to apply the terms to ordinary men and womenwho held the wrong beliefs. Most important, they were people“already in the world” (1 John 4:3). Therefore, in this view,though 1 John 2:18 and 1 John 4:3 admit the teaching thatantichrist is coming, the verses in their context do not emphasizea single powerful figure (the antichrist) who will arise far inthe future. Instead, the verses refer to people living at the timethe letters were written.After Jesus’ crucifixion, many Christians believed that hewould return to earth at any moment, very soon, within theirlifetimes. John believes that the rise of arguments about how tounderstand Jesus must be a sign that the expected return of Jesusis about to occur: “it is the last hour.” Thus, the letters of 1 and 2John are filled with passion and urgency, because the authorrobin-bobin