A God who refused to disclose the fullness of salvation until the very last fragment of time? (2020-12-20) ​

0:00:01 hello i've been pondering this
0:00:03 question how can one admire a god
0:00:07 who refused to disclose the fullness of
0:00:10 truth
0:00:11 and salvation until the very last
0:00:15 fragment of time now explain
0:00:18 what i mean by this in christianity for
0:00:21 christianity in terms of the parousia
0:00:23 that's the technical term uh some people
0:00:26 use for the second coming of jesus
0:00:30 for christianity there have been too
0:00:32 many years of grace
0:00:35 in terms of salvation history there have
0:00:37 not
0:00:38 been enough let me explain what i mean
0:00:41 jesus uh the jesus of the four gospels
0:00:44 in the new testament seems to expect the
0:00:46 imminent
0:00:47 end times so uh in
0:00:50 mark's gospel for example in chapter 13
0:00:53 verse 30 it reads
0:00:55 and this is about the destruction of the
0:00:56 temple the whole chapter's about the
0:00:58 the signs of the end the destruction of
0:01:00 the temple and the return of the son of
0:01:02 man
0:01:03 who comes in glory and great power
0:01:07 and then after this jesus says truly i
0:01:09 tell you
0:01:10 this generation the generation of people
0:01:12 then living
0:01:13 will not pass away until all these
0:01:16 things
0:01:16 have taken place heaven and earth will
0:01:18 pass away
0:01:20 but my words will not pass away but of
0:01:23 that day or hour no one knows
0:01:25 neither the angels in heaven nor the son
0:01:28 but only the father so the precise
0:01:30 timing is unknown
0:01:32 but this generation truly i tell you
0:01:35 will not pass away until the second
0:01:38 coming
0:01:39 uh occurs and that's uh imminence or
0:01:41 imminence means
0:01:42 and just to back up this uh reading uh
0:01:46 here is um a huge
0:01:49 copy of the oxford bible commentary uh
0:01:52 published by ox university press it's
0:01:54 one of the
0:01:55 the standard reference works uh for
0:01:57 academics and students
0:01:59 of the new testament and the whole bible
0:02:01 and if you look up the passage i've just
0:02:03 read
0:02:04 in here um it says i'll just quote one
0:02:06 sentence
0:02:07 the end will come within the lifetime of
0:02:10 the present generation
0:02:12 um it's just interpreting that so the
0:02:14 end will come the end of the world the
0:02:16 second coming will come within the
0:02:17 lifetime
0:02:18 of the present generation meaning the
0:02:19 generation of course
0:02:21 of those living at that time um
0:02:25 and it's not just the jesus of the
0:02:27 gospels who uh
0:02:28 speaks this way paul the apostle paul
0:02:31 predicts the second coming
0:02:32 the parousia in his lifetime as well
0:02:36 and uh if we look at the bible again to
0:02:39 a passage in his first letter to the
0:02:43 thessalonians
0:02:44 chapter 4 verse 16 um
0:02:48 in fact i'll read back to verse 13 but i
0:02:50 but we do not want you so he's writing
0:02:52 to the thessalonians there's a
0:02:53 a small group of gentile christians in
0:02:56 thessalonica in
0:02:57 what we call greece today and he said he
0:03:00 writes to them
0:03:00 saying but we do not want you to be
0:03:03 uninformed brothers and sisters about
0:03:05 those who have died
0:03:06 so that you may not grieve as others do
0:03:09 i have
0:03:10 no hope we who are alive
0:03:14 who are left until the coming of jesus
0:03:16 will by no means precede those
0:03:18 who have died for the lord himself with
0:03:21 a cry of command and with the arch
0:03:23 angels calling but the sound of god's
0:03:25 trumpet will descend from heaven
0:03:27 and the dead in christ will rise first
0:03:31 so uh we who are alive so we who are
0:03:34 left alive
0:03:35 uh so so no need to grieve even those
0:03:37 who will
0:03:38 you know pre-decease them uh when that
0:03:41 when the uh when the second coming
0:03:43 occurs uh we will all be raised uh
0:03:46 from the dead and the dead in christ
0:03:48 will rise
0:03:49 first so but clearly there's an
0:03:52 expectation there
0:03:53 that he will be alive at the second
0:03:55 coming that will happen in his
0:03:57 generation
0:03:58 and the following the following chapter
0:04:00 verse chapter 5 verse 211
0:04:02 also says the same thing
0:04:06 but the weight has been extended
0:04:09 for almost 2 000 years or over 2 000
0:04:12 years now
0:04:13 so as i said for christianity in terms
0:04:15 of the prusia
0:04:16 there have been too many years of grace
0:04:18 because it should have happened the end
0:04:20 already but in terms of salvation
0:04:23 history
0:04:23 there have not been enough years now if
0:04:28 humans
0:04:29 appeared as we are told by the most
0:04:32 recent science and i just checked this
0:04:33 out
0:04:34 if we humans appeared about 200 000
0:04:36 years ago
0:04:38 how can one admire a god who refused to
0:04:40 disclose the fullness of truth and
0:04:43 salvation
0:04:44 until the larry at the very last
0:04:46 fragment of time
0:04:47 i two thousand years ago
0:04:50 i mean it's much less than one percent
0:04:53 of recorded human history
0:04:56 i'm reminded of a christmas poem by
0:04:58 thomas hardy the great english poet
0:05:00 who wrote he lived during the first
0:05:02 world war survived it
0:05:04 and after the first world war he wrote
0:05:08 at christmas time peace upon earth was
0:05:11 said
0:05:12 we sing it and pay a million priests to
0:05:15 bring it
0:05:16 after 2 000 years of mass we've got as
0:05:20 far as
0:05:21 poison gas so you know we've had that
0:05:25 we've had this
0:05:26 salvation for 2000 years and we're still
0:05:29 guessing each other
0:05:30 on an industrial scale so two millennia
0:05:33 it
0:05:34 does not seem uh to be enough if we've
0:05:37 been around for over 200 000
0:05:39 years why did god leave this fullness of
0:05:43 of truth and salvation uh that they
0:05:45 claim
0:05:46 until the very last last millisecond
0:05:49 that is something uh that we there's not
0:05:51 been enough time we should have been
0:05:53 extended
0:05:54 backwards to 200 000 years
0:05:58 interestingly in the quran we read
0:06:02 we have surely sent you presumably
0:06:04 muhammad
0:06:05 with the truth as a deliverer of good
0:06:07 news and a warner
0:06:09 there is no community that was not that
0:06:12 has not
0:06:13 had a warner and that's the
0:06:16 uh the 35th chapter verse
0:06:21 24 and there's a footnote in this
0:06:24 translation according to
0:06:25 a prophetic narration the total number
0:06:28 of prophets sent around the world
0:06:30 from adam to muhammad is 124 000
0:06:34 of which only 25 are mentioned in the
0:06:38 quran
0:06:39 so that's fascinating it seems
0:06:42 by accident design that that particular
0:06:45 understanding of salvation
0:06:47 can encompass what we now know from
0:06:49 science
0:06:50 to be the true age of humans humanity
0:06:53 having been around for
0:06:55 just under a quarter of a million years
0:06:57 um
0:06:58 and christianity expected in terms of
0:07:01 its foundation documents the world
0:07:02 and pretty much within a few years and
0:07:05 had no
0:07:06 concept of a deep time before that
0:07:09 uh so that that's uh that's what i was
0:07:12 thinking i don't know what uh
0:07:14 you think but um so time matters
0:07:17 at the end of the day