Roger Overton of The A-Team Blog has conducted a three-part interview with Kim Riddlebarger, author of A Case for Amillennialism and The Man of Sin.
Interview links: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3
Some of the questions covered in the interview include:
- What does a healthy Christian understanding of eschatology look like? How much of our time and study should we devote to it?
- Could you clarify in a nutshell what amillennialism is?
- I’m always baffled when the “replacement theology” charge is made against covenant theology. We hold that God has always had one way of saving his people, yet dispensationalists believe God has had at least two different plans for redemption. Doesn’t that make dispensationalism the real “replacement theology”?
- Could you explain why “the analogy of faith” hermeneutic is so important?
- What are the two ages (the “already” and the “not yet”) and how do they inform amillennial eschatology?
- What does it mean for Christians to “live in light of two ages?”
- Why do you think Christians are so interested in identifying Antichrists all around us?
- How do the political implications of amillennialism differ from dispensationalism?
- In The Man of Sin, you conflate hyper-preterism with all forms of partial-preterism throughout the book. Doesn’t this conflation of preterist positions lead to misunderstanding?
- What conflict(s) do you see between preterism and amillennialism?
It’s interesting to get Riddlebarger’s perspective on these issues and the length of his answers is appreciated. I was especially gratified to see the penultimate question, since this was a particular criticism of mine after reading The Man of Sin.
HT: The Riddleblog
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Is it just me or did it seem like Dr. Riddlebarger not answer the question on the conflicts between amillennialism and preterism? Instead, he talked about how most are postimillennialists and why their position could be strengthened if it was proven that Nero was in fact the antichrist?
As I see it, Nero certainly is the man behind 666, yet, it seems that the Johanine antichrist is anyone who rejects the humanity of Jesus (2 John) or the messiahship of Christ (1 John 2). Certainly Nero would fall into this, but so do many others. Far from just strengthening the post-mill idea, it fits in rather nicely to this amillennialist as well.
Yes, he did seem to punt on that one.
But I think it’s based on his reading on where (partial) preterists draw the line between past and future. An amillennial preterist might say that everything up to Rev 20 is past, that the dragon has been sealed and we’re in the thousand years. A post-millennial preterist might find that line somewhere in Rev 19, e.g. Christ is still conquering by His word, such that the millennium is still to be ushered in.