Does Hosea 6:2 place the Second Coming of the Christ at 3000 AD?

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In my opinion, this passage in Hosea has three fulfillments:

  1. The death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ ca 33 AD
  2. The restoration of Israel as a Nation in 1948
  3. The second coming of Christ between 2033 AD and 3000 AD (but likely well BEFORE 3000 AD)

Because Jesus was in the tomb for parts of three days, not 72 hours, the third fulfillment (the second coming) will happen after two complete millennia and part of a third millennium, hence after 2033 AD but before 3000 AD.

The second fulfillment is the interesting one. I discuss this on pp. 559-562 of Peace, like Solomon never Knew (2022). A key component of the thesis of that book is that Solomon's twenty-eight times from Ecclesiastes 3 are a schema for the history of Israel and the Church. That passage defines a framework for time and the prophetic vocabulary. Then the prophets, including Hosea, make references to those words to indicate the time in history when they will be fulfilled.

Solomon's clock begins in 960 BC with the dedication of the Temple in Jerusalem. Then each time lasts 120 years. By this timetable, here are some key historical events lined up against Solomon's times:

960-840 BC: A time to be born. The kingdom splits in civil war, giving birth to Israel in the north.

840-720 BC: A time to die. Assyrian captivity destroys Israel, which "dies".

720-600 BC: A time to plant. Judah flourishes under Kings Hezekiah, Josiah.

600-480 BC: A time to uproot. Babylonian Captivity uproots Judah.

480-360 BC: A time to kill. Queen Esther prevents genocide of Jews; their enemies are killed instead.

SKIPPING AHEAD...

1-120 AD: A time to weep. Jesus crucified, Jerusalem destroyed by Rome, etc.

SKIPPING...

360-480 AD: A time to dance. Roman persecution of Christians end and the Roman Empire becomes a Christian empire.

SKIPPING...

1440-1560 AD: A time to tear. The tearing is the Protestant Reformation and civil war within Christendom. Also, Jews expelled from Spain and caught up in the persecutions of the times.

1560-1680 AD: A time to mend. The General Crisis begins to subside and the Thirty Years War ends. The Peace of Westphalia begins a trend towards religious toleration. A safe harbor for the Jews is carved out in the Netherlands.

1680-1800 AD: A time to be silent. The Pietism Movement and American Great Awakening are a time for people to listen to God.

1800-1920 AD: A time to speak. Christianity's great missionary age begins. The means to speak are multiplied with the invention of telegraph, telephone, radio and motion pictures. The Hebrew language is resurrected by the Jews and becomes again the spoken language of the Jewish people.

1920-2040 AD: A time to love. God pours out his love on an undeserving world, extending lives, reducing poverty, ending slavery, increasing the food supply, providing opportunities for education to billions. And the Lord restored the land to Israel, which regained sovereignty over Jerusalem for the first time in over 1500 years.

With the above timetable, you can see this crucial sequence of times:

tear ... mend ... be silent ... speak ... love

Now look at Hosea again:

“Come, let us return to the Lord.
He has torn us to pieces
    but he will heal us;
he has injured us
    but he will bind up our wounds.
2 After two days he will revive us;
    on the third day he will restore us,
    that we may live in his presence. (Hosea 6:1-2)

The parallelism of "he has torn" and "he has injured" matches "a time to tear". That was the Reformation era.

The parallelism of "he will heal" and "he will bind up" matches "a time to mend". That was the post-Reformation period of the Peace of Westphalia. Some Christian monarchs began to tolerate the Jews, like Maria Theresa of Austria.

Then "after two days he will revive us" means skip "a time to be silent" and get to "a time to speak". This is when the Ottoman Empire reformed their land laws and permitted Jews to purchase land in Palestine. The First Zionist Congress was held in the 1890's. Jews began to speak about returning to Israel.

"On the third day he will restore us" is "a time to love", when God restored the land to the Jews and Israel was reborn.

By this logic, Hosea prophesied to within a century the time when Israel would receive back their nation, more than two thousand years before it happened. Not only that, he described several hundred years of the process. Seeing this amazed me...

Addendum: Concerning the day and the hour

Jesus famously told his disciples that no one knows the day or the hour of his return, only the Father, which the above ideas seem to contradict. Here is an answer to that charge:

  1. The fact that Jesus made such a statement indicates that there are prophecies in the Bible that suggest when he might return, hence giving people false expectations. They establish patterns of history. Jesus is not denying the existence of Biblical patterns, but declaring that his final return will be a departure from those patterns.
  2. The Holy Spirit is progressively revealing new truth from the existing pages of Scripture, as promised in John's gospel and elsewhere. If people in the first century church had this knowledge, they would know that Jesus would not return for a long time, thus refuting the doctrine of imminence. However, they did not have this information, thus imminence has been preserved. As history unfolds, we can look back and see that history has conformed to prophecies not understood then but made clearer now.
  3. There is a certain symmetry in history. The Bible says that people in the beginning lived much longer that we do today. Consequently, some Bible patterns divide salvation history into longer chunks of time near the Creation, which shorten to the 120 years in the pattern I propose (which matches the words of Genesis spoken by God prior to Noah's flood). We now live in a day when medical advances may eventually (God permitting) lengthen our lifespans beyond 120 years once more. That would cause a stretching of the final times beyond 120 years in duration. In Matthew 24, Jesus said:

"21 For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, no, and never will be. 22 And if those days had not been cut short, no human being would be saved. But for the sake of the elect those days will be cut short."

Thus we have stretching due to medical advances and shortening due to God's mercy towards the elect. How will these two opposing forces balance out? I do not know. They serve to preserve the doctrine of imminence while still allowing us to make sense of history according to Holy Writ.

Upvote:2

Does Hosea 6:2 place the Second Coming of the Christ at 3000 AD?

After two days He will revive us; On the third day He will raise us up, That we may live in His sight. - Hosea 6:2

This verse most assuredly does not imply that the Second Coming of Christ will take place in the year 3000!

Normally prophecy is never truly understood until the events of the prophecy have come to pass.

What this verse is referring to we are unsure of, but attempts have been tried to find an explication:

After two days. - A phrase sometimes used for the second day, i.e., to-morrow.

In the third day -i.e., after a short time. This and the above expression are not identical in the designation of time. Some Christian interpreters (Jerome, Luther, Pusey) consider the passage has sole reference to the resurrection of Christ. But with Calvin, Henderson, Schmoller, &c., we consider this to be contradicted by the form of the expression. To bring in the resurrection of Christ with no authority from the New Testament is far-fetched over-refinement, and breaks the consistency of the passage. - Hosea 6:2 MEANING

Upvote:4

No, God doesn’t tell us when the second coming will be. He only tells us how we will know the time is ripe, not when the harvest comes.

“Now learn this lesson from the fig tree: As soon as its twigs get tender and its leaves come out, you know that summer is near. 33 Even so, when you see all these things, you know that it[e] is near, right at the door.(AI) 34 Truly I tell you, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened.(AJ) 35 Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.(AK)

36 “But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son,[f] but only the Father.(AN) 37 As it was in the days of Noah,(AO) so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. 38 For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage,(AP) up to the day Noah entered the ark; 39 and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.(AQ) 40 Two men will be in the field; one will be taken and the other left.(AR) 41 Two women will be grinding with a hand mill; one will be taken and the other left.(AS)

42 “Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come.(AT) 43 But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what time of night the thief was coming,(AU) he would have kept watch and would not have let his house be broken into. 44 So you also must be ready,(AV) because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him.

45 “Who then is the faithful and wise servant,(AW) whom the master has put in charge of the servants in his household to give them their food at the proper time? 46 It will be good for that servant whose master finds him doing so when he returns.(AX) 47 Truly I tell you, he will put him in charge of all his possessions.(AY) 48 But suppose that servant is wicked and says to himself, ‘My master is staying away a long time,’ 49 and he then begins to beat his fellow servants and to eat and drink with drunkards.(AZ) 50 The master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he is not aware of. 51 He will cut him to pieces and assign him a place with the hypocrites, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.(BA)

(Matthew 24)

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