An Overview - from the time of Adam until today

[Let us now present an overview of the entire course of history since the time of Adam, as reckoned in the Bible, and survey the providential ages which comprise it. God’s providence to have fallen people establish the foundation upon which they could receive the Messiah, and thence complete the purpose of creation, began with Adam’s family. However, God’s Will was frustrated when Cain murdered Abel. Ten generations later, the unfulfilled Will was passed down to Noah’s family. God judged the evil world with the flood in order to set apart Noah’s family and conduct the providence of restoration. God intended to complete the providence by establishing the foundation for the Messiah in Noah’s family and sending the Messiah on that basis. Yet due to the fallen act of Noah’s second son, Ham, the providence for Noah’s family and the ark failed. As a consequence, the ten generations and the forty-day flood which God had set up to prepare for this providence were lost to Satan. 

After four hundred years (ten generations) had passed in order to restore through indemnity what had been lost to Heaven’s side, God’s Will was entrusted to Abraham. If Abraham had established the foundation for the Messiah on the family level exactly as God had intended, the foundation would have expanded to the national level, and thereupon the Messiah would have come. However, because Abraham failed in the symbolic offering, God’s Will was frustrated once more. Consequently, the biblical two thousand years from Adam to Abraham, during which God had sought a father of faith who could receive the Messiah, was claimed by Satan. Yet Abraham’s situation differed from that of Noah. Although Abraham failed in the symbolic offering, the family foundation for the Messiah was eventually fulfilled through the three generations of Abraham’s family: Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. On that basis, God multiplied the chosen people in Egypt and expanded the foundation for the Messiah to the national level. For this reason, Abraham is called the father of faith. (Rom. 4:11-12, 16-17) If we judge the significance of the age strictly by its outcome, we can understand that the two-thousand-year period from Adam to Abraham was for the purpose of finding one father of faith who could lay the foundation to begin the providence of restoration. Thus, God’s work of restoration can be said to have begun with Abraham. 
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However, due to Abraham’s mistake in making the symbolic offering, the two thousand years from Adam to Abraham were lost to Satan. Hence, a period had to be set up in which those lost years could be restored through indemnity to God’s side; this is the significance of the two-thousand-year period from Abraham to Jesus. If Abraham had not failed in making the symbolic offering, the Messiah would have come and stood upon the national foundation for the Messiah built by Abraham’s immediate descendants, and the providence of restoration would have been completed at that time. Likewise, had the Jewish people believed in and attended Jesus, they would have supported him to stand representing the nation as the living sacrifice before God. They then would have laid the national foundation for the Messiah. Jesus, standing as the Messiah on that foundation, could then have completed the providence of restoration. 

​However, just as Abraham failed in his symbolic offering, the Jewish people failed to make their offering on the national level when their leaders sent Jesus to the cross. Thus, a period of two thousand years — this time from Abraham to Jesus — was lost yet again to Satan. As a consequence, a parallel period had to be set up in which the earlier two-thousand-year period could be restored through indemnity to God’s side. This is the significance of the two-thousand-year period from Jesus’ time until today. During this age, founded upon the cross of Jesus, Christians must establish the worldwide foundation for the Messiah.] (EotDP P2 Intro S2)

How does this overview fit with your expectations for the 2nd Advent of the Messiah? This overview makes it clear that a proper response from mankind is required for the Will of God to be completed. This is quite different from the view of absolute predestination that was proposed by Biblical scholars such as John Calvin. It also makes plain that the chosen people of 2000 years ago made a fundamental error in not accepting Jesus as Messiah and, thus, believing in and following him. Needless to say, had they done so they would not have conspired with rejecting him and having him executed.
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Understanding why God created us in His image should strongly imply that we, the people, have a part in our own perfection and this is not going to be achieved autonomously as it is for all the rest of the creation. The relationship between God and mankind is very similar to the relationship between parents and children. We, as parents, cannot force compliance from our children and, similarly, God cannot interfere, or intervene, in the portion of responsibility that belongs to mankind. Since the Fall of Man resulted in inviting satan to become the false ruler, god, of this world, then it is we, the people, (God’s children) who are tasked with inviting satan out. This is the crux of the Last Days when mankind wakes up to this realization. 

The signs of the Last Days as recorded in the Bible seem, at first sight, to suggest that everything will be accomplished by God in a very dramatic, apocalyptic, way. But these same verses can be seen in an entirely different light when the human portion of responsibility is included. Have a look at these interpretations of “Heaven and Earth destroyed, and a new Heaven and Earth created”; "Heaven and Earth judged by Fire”; “the dead rising from their tombs”; “people on earth caught up to meet the Lord in the air”; and “the sun darkened, the moon not giving light and the stars falling from heaven”. (EotDP Pt1 Ch3 S3) The difference between a world centered on the false ruler, god, (Jn12:31; 2Cor4:4) through the false parents of the Fall is very different from a world that is a family of mankind centered upon God through true parents; so the apocalyptic verses in the Bible emphasise that.

Hoping that a reappraisal can be made by Christians worldwide to connect with a 2nd Coming that will bring the plain and complete truth (Jn16:12&25) rather than for a 2nd Coming characterized by cataclysmic miracles. After all, everyone knows that Communism is the godless worldview, but a Christian God-Centered Ideological worldview is going to be needed to completely defeat that.

As ever, I'm interested to hear your thoughts. Let’s stop waiting for the ‘rapture’ and realize that we (the people) have to deal with this.

Andrew Derricutt