Will The End of The Age Be In 2020?
I have written numerous Posts on the topic of end time theology over the last few years, primarily because it is such an intriguing thing to speculate on, whether we are in the final days of our current church age which began when Jesus Christ ascended to heaven approximately 2000 years ago.
The reason that I believed that 2019 was the end of the age originated from a Biblical Chronology website I found a few years ago, which is now no longer online, but can be found in the web archives. I have posted below, the archived links for anybody who is interested. I contacted Ron Conte who originally put up the website, and received a reply today from Ron advising that he took down the site himself. Anybody who wants to purchase any of Ron's ebooks can find them at http://www.catholicplanet.com/books.htm
http://web.archive.org/web/20180806222026/http://biblicalchronology.com/
http://web.archive.org/web/20180806222026/http://biblicalchronology.com/census.htm
http://web.archive.org/web/20180806222026/http://biblicalchronology.com/tiberius.htm
Those links, and others on that site, explained that according to the research done by Ron back in 2003, Jesus Christ was not born 2019 years ago in the year 1 BC, as one would think from our current calendar, but in fact was born in 15 BC. You can read through the information on the above pages for explanations on why Ron believes this is the case. For the short version, Ron has another website which has a nice simple explanation of how this all works:
https://ronconte.com/2012/12/03/the-date-of-christs-birth-and-the-christian-calendar/
To cut a long story short, if Jesus was born on November 25, 15 BC as Ron claims on another website he owns, then if we count 33 years from there we find that Jesus 33rd birthday was on November 25, 19 AD.
http://www.catholicplanet.com/dates/
The reason that I miscalculated the year of Jesus death, resurrection and ascension, is because, unlike your life in the year 2019, because of the peculiarities of our calendar, there was a year missing in the lives of everyone who lived in the AD/BC years, that being the year 0, which did not exist. We go straight from 1 BC to 1 AD. To make this clear, I will lay out the years of Jesus life below so you can see for yourself.
BC
15 Jesus birth
14 1st birthday
13 2nd birthday
12 3rd birthday
11 4th birthday
10 5th birthday
9 6th birthday
8 7th birthday
7 8th birthday
6 9th birthday
5 10th birthday
4 11th birthday
3 12th birthday
2 13th birthday
1 14th birthday
AD - missing year
1 15th birthday
2 16th birthday
3 17th birthday
4 18th birthday
5 19th birthday
6 20th birthday
7 21st birthday
8 22nd birthday
9 23rd birthday
10 24th birthday
11 25th birthday
12 26th birthday
13 27th birthday
14 28th birthday
15 29th birthday
16 30th birthday
17 31st birthday
18 32nd birthday
19 33rd birthday
20 Ascension Day, 40 days after the Feast of First Fruits
So the upshot of all this, is that if we go by the Millennial Day theory which states that the church age will last 2000 years, then the end of the age will be sometime in May 2020, but not necessarily on the day celebrated by the church, which will be Thursday May 21, 2020. I have some issues with the way this is calculated, as according to my reckoning, Jesus rose from the dead on a Monday, three days* after Passover on Friday, so if Ascension Day is 40 days later it should be on a Saturday not a Thursday. (to prove this, just add 42 days or 6 weeks, then go back 2 days - 2 days before Monday is Saturday). But I am not fussed about the day or the hour, so we'll cross that bridge in 2020 when we come to it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennial_Day_Theory
*Edit 16/05/2020 I have to make a correction about the statement I made above, that Jesus rose from the dead three days after Passover, as the scriptures actually say that He rose from the dead "on the 3rd day", and also that it was on the first day of the week, which we refer to as Sunday. So in fact, the most accurate date for Ascension Day would be Friday the 22nd of May 2020, which is 40 days later.
I'm 60 years old. If I had a penny for every inaccurate chronology that I've seen in my lifetime I'd be rich man today.
The End of the Age couldn't possibly be in 2019 or 2020 because the 7 year Great Tribulation period hasn't started yet. It won't start until the world ruler signs a 7 year peace treaty with Israel.
The pre-tribulation rapture of the church will come first. I believe that before the rapture the Ezekiel 38 and 39 prophecies must be fulfilled first.
Thanks for your reply @barncat. I never know if I am going to get a response on these Steemit Posts. It's good to know I have a brother in the Lord who is watching and waiting for His return.
The question of where we place the 7 year tribulation in the millennial ages is an interesting one. It can't fall into the church age because the church age ends when we are raptured. It can't just slot in between the church age and the millennium because then nothing adds up. The whole millennial week is 7000 years not 7007 years. So it has to fit into the millennial age. I found scripture to back this up too: Revelation 12:9-10
And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night. - Revelation 12:9-10 http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Revelation12:9-10&version=AKJV
What those verses tell us is that when Satan loses the war in heaven and is kicked out of heaven and down to the earth, that is the start of the millennial or kingdom age. Jesus has already begun to reign in v5 which is the rapture. You are probably also aware that we have already passed v1 which was the birth sign in the heavens on September 23 2017.
If you scroll through my Blog you will find I went into more detail on that in previous Posts.
But hey, the end times and our understanding of them is a work in progress. I'm just happy that I'm saved by the blood of the Lamb and will go up in the pre trib rapture, whenever that actually happens. I was hoping for Pentecost this year but when nothing happened yesterday I wrote this Post because I then became open to the possibility of a 2020 rapture on Ascension Day.
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