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Charles Page | PentecostalTheology.com
Isaac Watts’ song, Joy to the World was written in 1719 and based on Psalms 98. He died in 1748 and he is “rolling in his grave” when his song is sung at Christmas! It is not about Christ’s birth but about the second coming. He was probably a post-millennial believer although he could also be A-millennial. He was not pre-millennial. “Joy to the world, the Lord has come, let earth receive her king; let every heart prepare him room, and heaven and nature sing!” -no shepherds, no manger, no wise men from the east but a King returning to the earth to rule. Not a Jerusalem rule but an earthly rule. Every heart prepare him room!
Before 70 AD the Jews could sing this song with great anticipation and after 70 AD it was a song of Christ’s rule over all the earth.
The first century church sang, “Oh our Lord is coming back to earth again. Satan will be bound a thousand years, we will have no tempter then, when our Lord shall come back to earth again.”
I am less into Christmas this year, more than ever. I don’t focus on a babe in a manger but a King from on high!!!
JOY TO THE WORLD!!
David Lewayne Porter
Bound 1,000 years,
No tempter then….
I bet all the addicts in the world are glad for that.
Gary Sawyer
“O’ Holy Night” is another song that was written as a Hymn (((but it somehow got lumped into being a Christmas song
Nicole Traviss-Mackenzie
I didn’t know this, thanks for sharing 🙂
David Lewayne Porter
Well,
I will sing “joy to the world” at Christmas because,
1) we are to be joyful every day
2) the angel proclaimed tidings of great joy when they announced the birth of Jesus to the shepherds. Luke 2:10.
Daniel Blaylock
We use it as an Advent hymn because this season focuses on the coming of Jesus, both his first coming and his second coming! In the old testament, many prophecies about What Jesus will do in both his first and second arrivals are mixed together. I love using this hymn for that reason during Christmas. We use the Christmas story to learn how to wait and hope on Jesus return just as they waited for his first appearing.
Varnel Watson
Isaac Watts is often cited as the strongest possibility for direct influence upon Scofield. In an article titled, “The Harmony of All Religions Which God Ever Prescribed to Men, and All His Dispensations Towards Them,” Watts presents a detailed dispensational system of biblical ages that in many ways resembles Scofield’s system. For example, Watts’s definition of a dispensation is quite similar to Scofield’s definition. Watts says,
The public dispensations of God towards men, are those wise and holy constitutions of his will and government, revealed or some way manifested to them, in the several successive periods or ages of the world, wherein are contained the duties which he expects from men, and the blessings which he promises, or encourages them to expect from him, here and hereafter; together with the sins which he forbids, and the punishments which he threatens to inflict on such sinners: Or, the dispensations of God may be described more briefly, as the appointed moral rules of God’s dealing with mankind, considered as reasonable creatures, and as accountable to him for their behaviour, both in this world and in that which is to come. Each of these dispensations of God, may be represented as different religions, or, at least, as different forms of religion, appointed for men in the several successive ages of the world.
http://scottaniol.com/wp-content/uploads/Aniol2.pdf
Charles Page
next you’ll say that Isaac was a premillennialist!!!
Scotty Searan
We sing O Cone All Ye Faithful as a Christmas song, But we also sing it as a worship song. But we don’t like to sing the old hymns do we?
Scotty Searan
I believe in ONE Second coming of Jesus Christ. I do not believe in a SECRET rapture.