Hello Again, Already!: A Book for the Spiritually-Minded Christian

By Milton Finch

In his new book about Pentecost, Hello Again, Already!, Milton Finch sheds new light on End Time events and Second Coming thought. It is Milton Finchs desire to keep the Scriptural interpretation of the original Greek and Hebrew as close as possible to the original meaning intended. Often times, the English interpretation has become cluttered with what some interpreters already considered to be a truth about certain sections of Scripture. In the authors mind the spiritual aspects in interpretation are considered the purest and this has not always been the case in many of the literal interpretations of Scripture. Through open-minded interpretation, Milton Finch has found the truth to become a free flowing reality where Scripture builds upon itself in the solidification of its point of interest. A simple yet deep book.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Apr 5, 2002
• ISBN: 9781469121161

Milton Finch

Milton Finch lives in the Low-Country of South Carolina with his wife, Audrey, his son Jamie, and his daughter Jennifer. Milton is a life-long Episcopalian and a devout Christian. Upon his conversion, he asked his father, the Rev. Floyd William Finch, Jr,, if he should also pursue a career in the ordained ministry. His father said something very wise, then left that decision to Milton. His father said that the church needed a strong laity and every time someone was converted to Christ, they wanted to join the ranks of the ordained. Milton, to this day, enjoys being a layperson.

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opyright © 2002 by Milton Finch.

Front Cover Photo by William Finch

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Library of Congress Control Number:     2002090878

ISBN:              Hardcover                 978-1-4010-4955-3

                        Softcover                    978-1-4010-4954-6

                         eBook                        978-1-4691-2116-1

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Rev. date: 12/05/2017

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CONTENTS

Introduction

Chapter I

Matthew 24: 1-14

The end

This chapter is an explanation of the apocalyptic prophecy in parabolic spiritual form. This encapsulates not only Christ’s experience, but also ours. This is about what He did for us.

Chapter II

Matthew 24: 15-31

This chapter is an explanation of the life of conflict that is experienced by every Christian. There is a growth that transpires only through trust in Him. This is about what we can do through the power of His Holy Spirit.

Chapter III

Matthew 24: 32-51

The Power of His Holy Spirit and Where We Sit in the Mix

This chapter is an explanation of the personal relationship between the created and Creator that is lived by every Christian. The reader is taken through the many facets of personal and community relational moments. This chapter centers on the question of, "Will we live the life of being a loving member of the mystical Body of Christ now that we have the knowledge and presence of His Holy Spirit?"

Chapter IV

Micah 4

In this chapter, Christ’s understanding and deep study of this pro phetic chapter of the Old Testament bolsters the ideas contained in Matthew 24.

Chapter V

Pentecost and the Speaking of Tongues

This chapter firmly connects the Matthew 24 prophecy and parable into the spiritual realm of realized eschatology.

Chapter VI

Speaking in Tongues (1st Corinthians, 14)

This section deals with an explanation and in-depth study of speaking in tongues using the original Greek interpretation that is afforded in the New Testament.

Chapter VII

The Rapture Account of 1st Thessalonians

Using the original Greek, the rapture account that is adhered to by many is seen in an alternative spiritual approach.

Chapter VIII

Second Peter, Chapter 3

The apocalyptic gloom and doom are transferred into real life experience for every Christian.

Chapter IX

A Look at the Trinity

Revelation enables the reader to imagine the Trinity and grasp a deeper understanding of the Triune God. This being accomplished, one can see the interconnectedness of the End of which Jesus spoke and the Pentecost celebration known as the birthday of the Church.

A Culmination of Questions and Reasoning

Endnotes

I

DEDICATE THIS BOOK TO AUDREY,

MY LOVING WIFE, WHO TRAVELED THIS TRAIL

WITH ME THAT WAS MARKED OUT

EVERY STEP OF THE WAY.

SHE IS AN EVER-SMILING PRESENCE,

AN EVER-UNDERSTANDING SHOULDER,

AND AN EVERLASTING LOVE IN MY LIFE.

I WOULD LIKE TO EXPRESS MY DEEPEST GRATITUDE AND THANKS TO VIRGINIA WARD FOR HER TIRELESS WORK IN EDITING THIS BOOK. VIRGINIA, YOU ARE A GENIUS AND I AM AWED AND HUMBLED BY YOUR WISDOM AND EXPERTISE.

INTRODUCTION

I knew that I was seeing something powerful, and I knew that it was making good sense, but I did not have a name for it. When I spoke with Episcopal minister, Father Michael Burton, head of Christian Education in the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina, he mentioned two schools of thought dealing with what I had been seeing. I began to realize that the schools of thought were near the truth, but there was something large that was missing. The first thought that Father Burton told me about was called preterism. That is a school of thought that the Second Coming of Christ took place in 70 AD, with the fall of Jerusalem when the Temple was destroyed. The second, which is different from preterism (or what I am seeing) is called realized eschatology. Realized eschatology deals with the realization that we are living a kingdom life through the mind and heart of Jesus, but it places the end times during the actual life of Jesus. This view, though, is erroneous because of what Jesus is recorded as saying in his trial before Pilate in John 18:36. That poignant statement is but now my kingdom is not from hence. The catalyst needed to form a kingdom of people willing to fight and die at a spiritual level was not in place at that time.

We have all heard the statement, We, as Christians, are to be in the world, but not of it. That is the human mind striving and reaching outward to the spiritual. Christ is saying in John 18:36 that His kingdom was not of this world, but that it would soon be in it. He was stating that the spiritual aspects of His kingdom that He knew and loved would soon be present and transcending this earthly existence through the power of His Holy Spirit.

In dealing with preterism and realized eschatology, I have noticed that there is a clinical air, a dissecting of scripture to prove a point. What I have been seeing and will try to get across to the reader is more one of a spiritual reality to be lived in the life of every individual touched by the Spirit of the Risen Lord.

The scripture also has shown me that the end times discussed are of two different natures. The first is that we live a life through the Spirit of the Lord that He has given us. The second has to do with the time of our death and what transpires when we finally cease to breathe. I have found that the two are easily discernible with a trained eye. I have even found both mentioned within a few verses of each other.

The easiest way to explain these insights is probably with a verse by verse description of what is being said, with occasional movements into other books of the Bible for back-up support. I have found that many who are trying to prove a point will bounce from book to book, sharing only one verse at a time when they find it to be to their benefit. I have had entire sections to come open, thanks be to God, with each verse building upon the other until the whole section is seen to be one idea. The sections that I have studied have not been dealt with on whole account, but rather have been skipped over lightly in the hopes of proving something that is not quite there. It is my hope and prayer that after reading what I have found, the reader will come to a closer understanding as to what was originally intended.

The translation that I will be using is the King James Version with some insertions from the New International Version because of its readability. The King James Version gives me that ability to go back to the original Hebrew and Greek using a Strong’s Concordance. The Greek and Hebrew languages are very picturesque, with imagery that comes alive when pondered. I have noticed that spiritual truths, once unavailable due to the English translation, suddenly jump out to provide very real possible spiritual alternatives to unrealistic and misunderstood points of view. We can see entire segments of Christendom misled by eschatological, end time events when literally propounded by the English translational interpretation. If we don’t allow those ideas of spiritual reality to develop and become part of our human existence, then we are falling far below the resources that are available to us. My wife, Audrey, once said, What is it about so many Christians, that when they finally come to know the Lord, they immediately put their brains on a shelf? I agree. If we don’t allow for more understanding, then we have failed in the stewardship of our minds towards the things of God. We will have wasted the day.

*    *    *

The 24th chapter of Matthew will be studied first. There are three accounts of this dissertation by Christ. The other two accounts in Mark and Luke do not go as far as Matthew in the spiritual aspects. Matthew is the most in-depth. It is the fullest account of what Christ said to his disciples dealing with the eschatological matter. Some of the same points are made, but the depth is not there. Let us begin.

CHAPTER I

Matthew 24: 1-14

[Mat 24:1] And Jesus went out, and departed from the temple: and his disciples came to him for to shew him the buildings of the temple.

Let me see if I understand this verse correctly. They, the disciples, came to show Jesus, their teacher, the buildings of the temple. When we look at the Strong’s Concordance for buildings, we are told that the word in Greek, oikodome, means architecture. So, the disciples were coming to our Lord, and in essence saying, Look at the architecture of this temple! May I ask a quick question? Who does one think would know more than anyone on the face of this planet how the temple would be put together? I am not speaking in a materialistic place the board here sort of way. Who would know more, on a spiritual level, how the temple would be constructed?

Jesus, the Son of God, the aperture through which we see the kingdom of God, would know perfectly how His Father would want to build the temple. He would know what kind of spiritual materials would be needed. He would know exactly with what force to hit the spiritual hammer. He would know how high to raise the spiritual timber. He would know how to make the roof so that it would not let the rain through when the spiritual season gets stormy and wet. He was the one specifically chosen and anointed for the job of erecting a temple to the Father’s highest aspirations.

So many today are willing to tell God how He should build His temple. They will go out of their way to show everyone else that worship must be done in such and such a way, with a bow here or a raise your hands there. They would have you believe that the only way to make and keep a church going is by thinking, or doing, a certain way. After a while, the church that they are building takes on the air of institutional politics. People become affiliated; they band together with the ideas that they all should think alike, be alike, dress alike, and love alike. They even vote alike! After they have been together for a while, then complacency sets in. They become comfortable in the nice buildings that they have formed for the here and now.

But Christ is not speaking of the here and now. His mind and heart are set on something that transcends this existence. His desire is that we can and should be where He is in order to enjoy this life that God has given us. We can fulfill His desire if we will let Him show us how He would build His temple.

But how is He going to build that temple? Did He leave a plan drawn in the sand? Did He leave the design behind for us on how this thing would be built? If we found the plans, would we pick them up and run to the nearest home building store to buy what we needed and begin erecting this fortress? If we see the plans before us, and know them to be true, what will we each individually do in order to get this project off the ground? Thy kingdom come is a prayer that is in many of our lives. Do we really want the kingdom here, or is it all just fanfare to impress those around us? They came to Him to show Him the buildings of the temple? Hmmm . . .

[Mat 24:2] And Jesus said unto them, See ye not all these things? verily I say unto you, There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down.

In this verse, Jesus begins to speak to his disciples about the temple and certain realities of the temple. Or better yet, our attention should be directed to the stones of the temple, for you see, the word for things, as used in the King James Version, does not exist in the Greek text. It was an addition to help us out from the time that the translation was compiled. So in reality, Christ was asking his disciples to center on the stones that were used in the building of the temple. One will notice that immediately following his entreaty to center on the stones that he states that not one of these that is stacked, one upon the other, shall not be thrown down. In other words, every stone that was in the temple that Christ was explaining the architecture of was going to be thrown down. What does it mean to be spiritually thrown down?

First, we need to look at the Greek word kataluo for thrown down. If one uses the Strong’s Concordance to find either the word thrown or the word down, he will be directed to kataluo. Specifically in the definition of this word is the thought that one will be halted for the night. It is used elsewhere in the Bible for both come to naught (Acts 5:38) and lodge(Luke 9:12). Now, if it means, halted for the night, then it means that each individual stone will be halted for the night. They will have been forced to come to a point of stillness during a dark time. The next thing to be asked is this: Is he speaking about rocks . . . or is he speaking about something different?

Physically, if we look at what Christ is saying here on the surface it looks as if he is foretelling a catastrophic destruction of the temple. We need to look, though, from the point of view of the architecture and how the temple would be built, for that is how this 24th chapter of Matthew began. If we look at what he is saying from a spiritual angle, we see something entirely different. When we, as believers of the risen Lord, speak of the mystical body of Christ, do we not speak of ourselves as the living temple? 2nd Corinthians 6:16 says, ye are the temple of the living God. It says in 1st Peter 2:5, Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.

So, when we look closer, Jesus is telling his disciples that every person that will be a member of the house of God will sooner or later go through a period of being thrown down. We see that all those members of the temple of God are going to be called on to make spiritual sacrifices. We will be brought to a point of sacrificial silence and humility by being members of this temple.

Building a top-notch structure is done only through a lot of blood, sweat and tears. The temple that Christ knows how to build is the most perfectly constructed by far, for it is built by the power of God and will last an eternity. Being allowed to be a member of such a structure is quite an honor that should not be taken lightly.

[Mat 24:3] And as he sat upon the mount of Olives, the disciples came unto him privately, saying, Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?

We have now traveled to the Mount of Olives, where the disciples are talking among themselves, not quite understanding what Jesus has just told them. They are speaking among themselves and they are coming to their own conclusions, once again, about how the temple should be built. They seem to be coming to the conclusion that catastrophe is inevitably on its way.

Many in Judaism at that time held apocalyptic ideas about when the Jews would be freed from their oppressors. The cry constantly arose from the masses, How long, oh Lord . . . How long must we live under the thumb of the Roman legions? That is still the cry today. Tyrannies are evident on all corners of the globe. Human minds constantly devise ways of freedom from demons, be they dictated or self-imposed. Each time a route of escape is planned, another temple is erected from fleshly thinking.

They asked Jesus a threefold question, When shall these things be, what shall be the sign of thy coming, and when will be the end of the world? The remainder of the 24th chapter has Jesus answering their questions. The problem, though, lies in the way that the disciples, and many today, understand his answer to them. The disciples soon came to understand his answers fully and completely, but their knowledge has been lost down through the ages.

We need to once again go into the Greek and look at the simple word end that is used in this 3rd verse. The word that is put forth is sunteleia, meaning entire completion. The disciples were asking Jesus basically when it would all be over. In other words, when was Jesus going to pack everything up, roll up the skies, put them under His arm and take them home to His Daddy.

What so many have never seen is that Jesus never incorporates that idea in the remainder of the chapter! When the word for end is used, and it is used four more times in this chapter, it is not sunteleia at all. The word that is used in verses 6, 13 and 14 is telos.* That word means something entirely different from what the disciples asked. Telos means ‘conclusion,’ yes, but the conclusion of what? He was saying that something was going to conclude, and we have indeed seen the actions of the sinful state conclude when his Spirit is made known to our spirit. Telos also means a final result. It is as if one takes a cup of coffee that has no sweetener in it and then stirs in some sugar. The coffee is the same cup of coffee, but the final result is that it is now sweet. The coffee has not ceased to be in the here and now. It is still very present and remains in a natural, material reality. That is telos. Telos also means a tax or an impost. That means that if a person is going down a highway and comes to a tollbooth, something will be required of the traveler. We all go down the highways and by-ways of life, and each life moment we are presented with circumstances that will require our most earnest strivings. That, also, is telos.

How many times have we misunderstood something that was communicated to us? The disciples have asked one thing, but Jesus is going to answer in quite a different way. The disciples understood what Christ was speaking of later on in their lives, but it was still too early in their spiritual life for them to comprehend what Jesus was conveying to them. One will see this with more clarity as the Matthew account progresses.

*"Ak’-ron" is the fourth usage of the word ‘end,’ which is found in Matthew 24:31, and it means ‘extremity.’

[Mat 24:4] And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you

[Mat 24:5] For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many . . .

Jesus begins his reply to their questions. He begins with a warning. But remember that Jesus is dealing with the buildings of the temple. Keep that point in the forefront of your mind the whole way through.

Looking into the Greek, we see for the word deceive a definition of to cause to roam. Upon studying the discourse, this deceiving comes from a fraudulent attempt to get the person listening to Jesus to go in the direction of the one who would call himself Christ. Jesus wants his listeners to stay grounded. He doesn’t want them carried away into thoughts that are not of Christ, and he realizes that many will try to do this very thing.

Let’s look at the word for Christ, Christos, which means, rubbed or smeared with oil. When something was consecrated to the service of God, it was anointed, smeared with oil, making it ready for service in the worship of God. That item was set apart for use in the service of God. Many would want you to think of them in that way. One can hear them saying, God has just smothered me with holiness! History is spotted with individuals who would have others believe that they, personally, are the ones that need undivided attention and love.

Jesus was saying that there would be many who would either say that another had to listen to them, or the individual listening would take it upon himself to heed what the supposed Christ was saying. The word Christ is the Greek word for Messiah. A Messiah, in the Jewish community, is the one with the responsibility of ushering in and ordering the deliverance that can come only from God. Joshua and Moses were forms of a messiah.

Okay now. The stones (the people of the temple of God) that would go through that dark time, a time of humility and being silenced, would have to contend with persons who would be a Christ to them. When an individual is going through a hard time, he will reach out to anyone around him in the hopes that a consoling will take place. He will want to be helped by those who are an ear’s shot away.

Jesus was saying that in order to grow into a lively stone of the temple of God, one must not lean on every shoulder that comes his way. He was saying that one should see an ordeal through with a hope that in the culmination, one would find the true Messiah. That Messiah would be reaching out in all His power to the salvation of the one going through the difficult situation.

[Mat 24:6] And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.

Remember that Jesus is speaking of the architecture of the temple. Jesus is speaking of the way that the temple will be built, not destroyed! What, one may ask, do wars and rumors of wars have to do with the building of a temple? What words can one come up with that represent a temple? There needs to be a centering on faithful community settings. When one looks closely, he will find churches, synagogues, and generally all gathering spots where God is worshipped in holiness as representing temples.

Now to speak of war. Let’s see what other words we can come up with representing war . . . . There would be campaigns, fights, hostilities, battles, struggles, carnage, clashes, combats, conflicts, contentions, crusades, frays, skirmishes, slaughters, and blood shed just to name a