John Macarthur
Three things converging on a really bad day: One, the binding of Satan. Two, the whole premillennial, postmillennial and amillennial thing. Three, John MacArthur.
How did I manage to make an issue out of these three, taken as a unit? Well, maybe because on this horrible day I felt bound. Maybe because the day before I visited my relatives and came perilously close to making the mistake of plunging headlong into an argument about the Book of Revelation, being a war in which I vowed never to invest so much emotional capital. Maybe because John MacArthur came on the radio at just the wrong time talking about the many ways the Word of God is not bound as long as we have some people going around saying something like “I believe in Jesus.” Its a result of the perfect storm, consisting of a temporary loss of sanity that was the result of 30 minute period of time when I left on a Catholic radio program, then listening to a boorish family member, then a sudden surge of shame in not being what I am supposed to be at 57 years old, then bad weather with almost two inches of rain and living in a time when there is such a thing as LifeWay Christian Store’s exist. The storm came, cut its rending swath disturbance into my soul, and left me with another slightly pissy thing embedded with the spiritual effluent of the age begging for a clean-up contractor.
“Ok, I’m done venting,” I said to my wife (wife walks hurriedly into the other room. She nervously pushes buttons on her phone and begins to talk to her sister in hushed tones while periodically making a panicked glance in my direction).
I don’t mean to come heavy on John MacArthur, though. I don’t like leveling criticism on individuals who peach the gospel, even when they only want to preach half of it (Phil 1:18). I don’t want to speculate on his motives or just make this about John MacArthur, I want to use him to illustrate just a few things. I could do the same with just about anyone preaching today or over the last 1600 years or so.
The biblical concept of “binding,” as in the binding of Satan mentioned in the Book of Revelation, or for that matter the binding of the Word of God. What does it mean? You know, it’s a huge interpretational controversy. It’s crucial to end-time prophecy people in a calculation of choosing, premillennialism, postmillennialism, and amillennialism.
I don’t have a firm position on this, but I do have a firm position on how, biblically, theologically, a person can be said bound. Its very simple: in the Bible, a person is in duality with his Word, his reputation, his moral history. Good people are bound not only in body but most importantly by his good Word’s squelching, negating, relegating, mitigating, choose your adjective. A bad person is bound in relation to his evil word. In the Bible, the Good Word is a fulfilled prophetic one, and an evil one is a word coming out of the imagination and false promises of a mind controlled by the resources and motivations of the world. If you want to know when Satan is bound, look for the place in which the Word of Christ is unbound, fulfilled in its entirety. That is the place when the word of Satan is bound.
But that’s not the big takeaway by looking at the issue in this way. What this means is that don’t you dare to presume that you can speak of Christ or Satan as persons but not a kind of revelation. Then, don’t you dare presume that the meaning, the reason for the truth of its manifested appearance physical reality, or the reason for the truth of a concept, is superior to that appearance, especially when you can’t go anywhere and look at that appearance except through its meaning. Say that manifestation in a person is superior to the extent of its importance to serve as the means of starting point to the truth, but for faith, without truth, there is no manifestation of it and no way to have a truthful faith.
You can draw your own conclusions about Revelation from this, but the message is always that it’s not wise to think that the Book of Revelation is important, and when Satan is bound unless you first have real faith. Let’s use this issue to nail down what that is.
1. Biblical principle one of this site: biblical persons are equated with their word. Jesus is the Word of God, Satan is the word of this world. If you talk about binding, don’t forget the most important thing is a Person/Word relation. A Word that signifies and physically animates one to physically bind another’s Word, not principally his body.
2. If we are talking about faith first, this is a superior/inferior relation. For faith, before you have it, the Word is superior to the person and is your only means of knowing if this person is objectively true. Synonyms for “Word” are personal information, evidence of a claim, his history, the promises he has made, his “machine code,” if you will. The person is his claims, professions, opinions, beliefs, promises, his justifying statements and ideas. If he is not True, then this automatically means you have made a judgment with respect to the truth of this his word and, perhaps, his moral integrity. His truth either lines up with his appearance or it does not.
2. This Word is essentially prophetic, but especially in a biblical context. Let’s not forget it. I mean prophetic of Messiah. A Word is not just a statement, a proclamation and a claim, its a demonstration. The prophetic is a Divine idea and demonstration, a Holy truth, a biblical phenomenon that is specialized for a unique penetration of the human heart. It is a statement of commitment and a future prediction of the actions of its Personal object. This kind, of Christ, is true and of good intention. The other, of Satan, is false and of evil intention.
3. Any person is the potential outer-symbolic representation of God’s messianic, abstract word that demands his obedience and maps his actions. That word is a fulfilled word and person who believes it is also fulfilled by it. How does a mortal fulfill what only the Dinve can? His love of truth is fulfilled and the will of God for him is fulfilled in his search for this Truth that God provided, his finding of it, his moral judgment of its claim and his belief in its truth. When a person fulfills this Word by believing it and acting because of its influence, this act of fulfillment in respect to God’s fulfillment becomes a sure proof of his commitment to it and means of establishing his nature by objective Transcendence.
4. Jesus is his Word, Satan is his word, and are both locked to a promise/fulfillment paradigm. Our main hermeneutical task is making sure that any ideas we entertain in connection with this kind of revelation serve the offered revelation of those persons instead of becoming autonomous of them and become independently worshiped. This applies most importantly to our commitment to maintaining the word of the person in the prophetic class instead of an entirely idiomatic, religious, evil, Satanic one.
5. You are not permitted to say that Satan is bound, or Jesus is put in prison or bound to a Cross, for example, without applying it to the prophetic word spoken of the person. You are also not permitted to use the Word in a way that applies first to any of its lower personal subjects unless you wish to cause the superior entity of the Word to be epistemically bound by its inferior, an idea, a person, a claim, a statement. If we speak of a person binding another, the Word is the superior force that binds another’s.
You are not permitted to say, as John MacArthur, for example, that the defeat or Divine engagement of a carnal world there are people by the idea, not the Truth, “I believe in Jesus” and any theological propositions. That would the equivalent of placing the inferior entity of the believer as the superior to the Person of the Word, Christ. Treating “I believe is Jesus” and its ideational category as content-less unless that content is stated, which can only be the prophets that spoke of Christ and which he fulfilled. Even Christ said he did not make his messianic claims based upon his own authority, but appealed to the Father and his Word that validated him (John 5:31).
You are not permitted to say that Satan is bound in any way, to discuss it with ardent focus and preoccupation, to write books about it, to take any theological side and raise it up as the major distinction or symbol of your faith as opposed to another, without first making sure you’re not helping him. If you’re helping him then you are doing something that helps him unbind.
It would be quite the poetic justice that those that spent so much time on how and when the person of Satan is to be bound and claimed to do it in the name of Christ, but in reality is a member of Satan’s people who are to be bound along with him, expressly because in their “faith” the “Christ” person concept is given talismanic instead of prophetically demonstrative power, and that Holy, biblical power of the phenomenon that proves him as the Christ is ignored or relegated.
Look, I’m not saying that John McArthur is Satanic! But we can all act that way and do things that really help him, and if you’re in the pulpit you have to be really, really sure how much you are helping and how much you are misdirecting.
But let’s get one thing straight right off the bat: if anyone is binding the Word, as we speak of the binding of Satan and his word, it is those who use it in an effort to throttle its distinctly prophetic emphasis. This is done by the real carnal world who delights in suppressing Christ so that they will better magnify themselves and their personal, essentially carnal, anti-revelational desires.
John MacArthur’s sermon1 that triggered this whole rant is an entirely a false calculus of righteousness if he wishes to equate self-sacrifice as a righteous expression of an unbound Word of Christ if that word only rises to the level of one’s tenacity of saying or believing “I believe in Jesus” or rattling off bullet points in the Westminster Confession. Neither is the persecution of the word/person persecution of the Word of God if those who do so do not hear the word that they reject, for then they persecute only a feeling and a bare religious concept. If you are impressed by a Christian being tortured and refusing to renounce Christ, this in itself is not an ultimate symbol of faith to accompany “I believe in Jesus” because this resistance to torture for the sake of one’s beliefs is not unique to Christianity. Here is just a few to underscore this point:
http://www.phayul.com/news/article.aspx?id=5395&t=1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIgtBQ8rwdA
http://sikhism.about.com/od/history/tp/Sikh-Martyrs.htm
You have to examine the truth of the belief itself of the persecuted, what is motivating and informing him, and make sure it is the same as that which Christ set for it before you can talk about the righteousness of expression of the body to proclaim it.
There is one dominant perspective expressed in two forms: “To bind” means only or primarily a binding of activity of a non-divine Satan. This activity of binding is sometimes taken rightly as the binding of a satanic thought as well, but that influence is rarely qualified by a certain revelational stream. Its dominant sense is in the idea of the binding of the person of Satan. His symbol, not his Truth substance.
Because this real activity of binding is the influence of knowledge of the individual bound, and action is thought as only a kind of objective movement by some essence operational in the world from place to place, not an action of thought around knowledge, the two derivative concepts then can only form a default not into qualities of binding activities, but only into the extent of binding activities. One is then a complete binding of the extent of activity and the other is a partial one.
This represents the two dominant theories on this in the Book of Revelation. Satan is partially bound or fully bound. That is, the Person Satan, not so much his influence of knowledge by another which is True and dominating it. If the issue were around this knowledge it would be forced to be also around what kind scripturally in the form of Divine demonstration, and that is not a subject Satan, or the Church, likes to talk about.
The interpretation of a complete binding of Satanic activity occurs in Revelation 20, mostly offered by pre-millennials. A partial binding for them occurs between the Cross and the Second Coming.
For a-millennials, this binding in Revelation 20, under the interpretative method of progressive parallelism2, is taken as partial that takes us back to the Cross, an action that makes it impossible for Satan to deceive the nations as he did before it.
Although the merits of each seem to be, at least to me, on the side of premillennials, since Revelation appears as a sequence of future events which ends in Satan being entirely contained and not partially. The difference between the two is still almost identical. They both sever or mute the concept of Satanic activity from the activity of the thought, the beliefs of Satan in the bound state. If it this kind of binding, of binding of a kind of faith of Satan and his motivating forces, then the entire idea of a binding or loosing is given to the kind of thought of persons around and with that which forms the content and motivation for thought. This is where we should be.
The same fight is seen over the idea of the Kingdom in which Christ now reigns. Emphasis is given to the objective place, whether “spiritual” or “earthly,” not why people are there, which can only go to the motivations of belief. To amillennials, “spiritual kingdom” means only that people there share the same conclusions.
Premillennials take the Kingdom as earthly, amillennials heavenly. The amillennials complain that the conception of an earthly Kingdom is destroyed when Christ says “my Kingdom is not of this world.” However, when it is stated that this rule will be “on the earth” (Rev 5:10), amillennials say that this means that we in the present day we are reigning with Christ in a spiritual kingdom.
But, again, in both senses, we must say the Kingdom and one’s place in it, whether heavenly or earthly, has to first be a kind of spiritual space, inhabited by those who confess to the same kind of conceptual entity which is the equivalent to that Kingdom space expressed by Truth about Christ, not statements, conclusions, creeds, feelings, emotions, tradition or rites. Not necessarily forced from a fundamental informational motivation for those statements of faith which are conceptualized as ideational faith tokens, but is not itself a concept.
Amillennials have the burden of requiring their followers to presuppositionalize faith as belief in a mystery penetrated by those sufficiently intelligent or enlightened or “obedient” or who will commit to God a conclusion which forces its predicate. It’s closely related to Gnosticism that assumed a hidden knowledge but appealed more to the power of personal discernment than the power of the text to reveal itself as objectively true. It is conceded that without presupposing that there is no 1000 year reign on earth no one could possibly get from the text that the binding Satan in Revelation 20 refers to the time of the Cross. If premillennials create a false expectation of a bodily second coming and the false hope of an earthly Kingdom, they along with amillennials engender a false hope in the power ideas over meaning to being in Truth, a post-modern faith which firmly believes that human constructions will cause trans-humanism in time.
This is done by both so that faith will be qualified and controlled by various and sundry idiomatic conclusions, as long as the result is “I believe in Jesus” and its permutations in an infinite variety of conceptual symbols, not demonstrated transcendent knowledge. It is advantageous to them because it increases Church membership by unbelievers, swelling the membership roles and collection plates. For kind of satanically inspired people who could care less about such things as messianic prophecy as a faith motivation.
Not, I continue with this biblical idea of binding. The way it is understood elsewhere will give us more evidence to choose a particular interpretation of the Book of Revelation.
So, how are the nations deceived? What is really being bound, and how is it partially bound? How do we understand Paul’s statement (2TI 2:9) about the Word not being chained? Is he only talking about any kind of word, like the word “Jesus” or “Bible?” Is there still yet a kind of hidden knowledge in the scriptures, but that which is not something to be fought for and grasped, but is missing only because its in plain sight and we don’t like it?
Matthew 12:29 (KJV)Or else how can one enter into a strong man’s house, and spoil his goods, except he first bind the strong man? and then he will spoil his house.
It’s all about the casting out of the demons of religious thought that prevent the worship of Jesus through the testimony of the Prophets. Please note vss. 17-21. There are prophecies (Isa 11:10; 49:5-6; 52:13; 53:11; Zec 3:8; Php 2:6-7 exp: Isa 42:1) that the Pharisees will not accept to predicate their religious faith and practice, and because of not giving them the priority they deny the plain truth that Jesus was fulfilling them.
This is not then a problem of actions, its a problem of thought and of heart…a spiritual problem. The Pharisees, who sought to destroy Jesus (Mat 12:13), are the ministers of Satan. Jesus instructed that no one was to declare that he was the Messiah. This would be an illegal kind of herald of the Messiah, and the Prophetic Word that he represents that will replace the corrupt religious motivation, as that Messiah and Word is a humble, unassuming revelation that projects power from its truth, not from the efforts and opinions of men who shout declarations.
The hearer is to confess his mantle as a believer only on the basis of the truth, not on any anterior preoccupation or agenda. Those possessed by evil are in possession by this anti-revelational thought under the religious mindset, charge, and teaching of the evil ministers, a spirit that causes them to struggle in their search of the truth. The “goods” in the verse above that are spoiled by Jesus are the possessions of the anti-revelational mindset: station, heredity, self-fulfillment, the Temple, the Law, their works that bring them to them. Jesus binds that evil by the manifest power of the Prophetic Word that speaks of Him.
This is a binding and spoilage of the religious mind the disseminates a faith not necessarily driven or motivated by messianic prophecy, a weakness that is exposed and overcome by the oracles of Christ as much as by Christ himself, which are one. This is necessary before the establishment of the Kingdom of Christ either in the sense of a progression through the church age or through a final coup de grace.
Matthew 22:13 (KJV) Then said the king to the servants, Bind him hand and foot, and take him away, and cast [him] into outer darkness; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
The passage is entirely a prophecy of the future rejection and triumph of Christ. The scripture is a prophecy and is about the binding of false prophecy, which here is about one’s own self-serving judgment as to his fitness for the Kingdom when his faith is not predicated on the Prophetic Word. The Kingdom of Heaven is an invitation to the religious class to believe Christ through the Prophets. They refuse. The meek and lowly who are invited accept. Those who refused the invitation will not be allowed to enter the Kingdom by claiming any religious qualification except that which God supplies, which is only faith in Christ through the fulfilled Prophets. The man without the wedding garment is bound, or conclusively judged, by the truth of Christ and cast into outer darkness.
If you think that I am speaking of some kind of trifle, that you already believe that Christ fulfilled the prophets and that this cant apply to you, I don’t want you to miss my point. I am not talking about whether or not your faith includes messianic prophecy, or if it makes some kind of gesture as to its truth through Christ, I am talking about whether your faith is missing of all of its many motivational parts except messianic prophecy.
Matthew 23:4 (KJV) For they bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne, and lay [them] on men’s shoulders; but they [themselves] will not move them with one of their fingers.
What is bound is the Pharisaical anti-prophetic, anti-revelational faith in the stricture of the Law which they prefer to Christ and his Prophetic Word. This is a binding of this religious evil upon the backs of those less knowledgeable but potential believers by the evil religionists, who expect them to perfectly fulfill it.
Mark 5:3 (KJV) Who had [his] dwelling among the tombs; and no man could bind him, no, not with chains:
No man could bind his religious insanity by any truth of man, but this is only possible by the Prophetic truth of Messiah Jesus and Jesus himself.
Acts 21:11 (KJV) And when he was come unto us, he took Paul’s girdle, and bound his own hands and feet, and said, Thus saith the Holy Ghost, So shall the Jews at Jerusalem bind the man that owneth this girdle, and shall deliver [him] into the hands of the Gentiles.
This is a prophecy by a prophet. It is a prophecy about the false prophecy of the religious mind that will attempt to bind up the truth of Jesus Messiah. This is only a temporary or apparent binding, as the Word of God itself cannot be bound.
Now, having established that this binding is a binding of the Prophetic Word of Christ or the binding is a binding of the word that is against it, not principally an activity of a person or persons as we conceive of it, might the Book of Revelation just possibly be more about the judgment of God upon an apostate Church so fallen because of its insistence on ideas of terrestrial or subjective origin that can live on to inspire and maintain a faith against God that does not need a miraculous, transcendent demonstration apparent to all? Should this not be expected, since the Book of Revelation itself is a prophecy?
I do not offer a detailed interpretation of the Book of Revelation, because it’s meaning to us is bound up in mystery until the end, at which time it will be loosed. I do not commit to an earthly Kingdom, nor that the Kingdom is only Heavenly, although I do lean toward the former. What I do insist on, for now, is what I know to be the identification of evil religion and righteous religion. The first is about using the oracles to serve a wholly secondary theological, epistemic and religious agenda, not admitting their full power to use us. The following then means what?
Ephesians 4:27 (KJV) Neither give place to the devil. 1 Peter 5:8 (KJV) Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour: James 4:7 (KJV) Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
Whatever you think about where the Devil is, what he is doing and when he is doing it, or how and when he is bound, these are of relatively no importance before confronting what kind of thought the Devil represents; what that thought it is doing, when, how, and in what manner and to what extent it is to be immobilized or limited in the Christian mind. It’s not as sexy, it may not capture the imagination or engage the intellect as much, but is this not why parabolic speech was used by Christ?
John 12:40 (KJV) He hath blinded their eyes, and hardened their heart; that they should not see with [their] eyes, nor understand with [their] heart, and be converted, and I should heal them.
In this faith, if you will understand it, meaning comes before the objects that represent them, objects being the world, the person, the action, the time and place, the apparent. Meaning is abstract, the transcendent, the motivation, “truth.”
If you want to know when and how and for how long Satan is bound, check your own heart first. You may find that there that Satan never was even lightly restrained in the place that really counts.
When I Survey the Wondrous Nace, part 1: Passing by Nehushtan
Christ and the Norming of Transcendence: Passing by Nehushtan
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