It is therefore misleading and confusing to find some Christians advocating a return to Jewish customs and ceremonies that the Bible itself declares to be of no value!

The record of our Saviour’s life and passion is the centre and hub of the Scriptures. Everything that came before anticipates him, and everything that follows flows from him.

Christian hope is supernatural. It does not exist at the level of human expectation, but is an expectation of the kingdom received by revelation and entered by faith.

A classic example relating to the return of Christ is the way Daniel 9:26 is interpreted. Belief in a two-stage return of Christ requires this verse to be separated from its preceding verses by a time gap of at least 2,000 years. Yet the passage itself offers not a shred of evidence that it should be interpreted in this way!

Today dispensationalism is the dominant view within the premillennialist fold. A literal, future reign of Christ from Jerusalem for 1000 years forms a key component of the complex dispensationalist system of doctrine despite the fact that it is based only on one Bible passage.

The plain fact is that no-one takes the entire Bible literally. We all accept that figures of speech, styles of writing and cultural context make such a notion impossible.

The classical Christian hope of our spiritual forefathers in past centuries was for the gospel to fill the earth and the kingdom to increase until Jesus returned.

Dispensationalism has, over the last 150 years, deeply eroded the expectation of many of God’s people concerning the end times. Instead of faith, there is fear. Rather than abounding hope, there is apprehension and speculation.

The kingdom the New Testament writers speak about is not ethnic, political or geographic. It has its roots in a right relationship with God.