In this post, I am going to attempt to lay out the various views of eschatology, and then suggest which I believe makes the most sense. To begin, I have posted a two part series on Daniel 9 in the past, (Daniel 9, part 1 post, Daniel 9, part 2 post), which gives a good background for this discussion. Daniel 9 is important because one particular interpretation of those passages drives much of the popular apocalyptic fiction available today. After reading this background post, tackling those two posts on Daniel 9 will be significantly more easily accomplished.
While eschatology is the study of redemptive history from Genesis to Revelation, it is often condensed to a discussion of end times. The reason that this occurs is that there are presuppositions concerning which events have already occurred. As Christians, we can generally agree that Jesus, the messiah, has already come incarnate, died, arose and ascended into heaven. This covers a lot of time, but it is important to state explicitly what is assumed to have already occurred before discussing what is potentially yet to come to pass and also what may or may not have already come to pass. That particular event in redemptive history we will call the First Coming.
How we interpret the whole Old Testament, particularly the prophets, Jesus, Acts and the Epistles will weigh heavily on how we view end times. You will notice that I have not even mentioned Revelation. Eschatology is contained in every word of the Bible. The mistake that is easily made is to try to interpret John’s Revelation without any redemptive historical context, or with an inaccurate historical context. Before we even wade into Revelation, at least some sort of framework or grid for dealing with that book is very helpful.
Let us start with a concept called the millennium. This is literally a thousand year period. Most views of eschatology that we are going to discuss will be either named or classified based upon their understanding of that term. To begin, from where in the Bible does this term originate? For the rest of this discussion, you will find these charts helpful. Follow this link and then click on the pdf file link on that page to get the charts. By the way, I want to take this opportunity to plug both the series of lectures found on the right column of that link on eschatology called Amillennialism 101 as well as both of Dr. Riddlebarger’s books on this topic, A Case for Amillennialism and The Man of Sin. Back to the Bible, let’s try 1 Chronicles 16 for a moment. I do not believe that this is the first mention of this idea of a thousand generations, but it is certainly clearly expressed here. In verses 15-16, we see the idea of a thousand generations for the duration of Abraham’s covenant. Interestingly, the Genesis text uses words like everlasting to describe the duration of the covenant. So this reference is clearly a mixture of texts by David. Even the Davidic Covenant prophesy in 2 Samuel 7 contains the word forever. In fact, it is clear that this reference refers to the Mosaic Covenant found in one instance in this section of Deuteronomy 7. We can therefore begin to understand the confusion among the Jews concerning the covenants when David himself is quoted (perhaps misquoted) as saying that there is a thousand generation duration to the Abrahamic Covenant. In Psalm 105, David is again quoted as saying the same thing regarding this time span and Abraham. But the point of this verbal gymnastic is this: perhaps this is a metaphor for a very long time that equates with forever. Psalm 90, called A Prayer of Moses, seems to suggest this very point. We’ll come back to that thought in a moment.
Now, let’s go to the back of the book, Revelations 20. This clearly talks about a thousand years. Go to the charts for a moment and notice that in all four charts, the millennium comes prior to the Last Day of Judgment. The differences lie in two important areas. The first difference depends upon the idea of whether the thousand years are literal or metaphorical. In the first two charts, Dispensationalism and Historic Premillennialism, there is a clear and definite literal millennium. But these two also have a second difference. In these two, first Christ comes back to establish the Millennial Kingdom, then He comes back again at the end of the Millennium for the Last Day of Judgment.
Now, let’s break down the differences between the first two and the second two, Postmillennialsim and Amillennialism. Dispensationalism is a subset of Premillennialsm in which, not only is there a second period of apostasy after the Millennial Kingdom and an actual second revolt before Judgment Day, but the dispensations and periods are marked by the changing focus of Redemptive History. We are in the pre-Rapture period where God is dealing primarily with Gentiles. Notice in the chart that in the post bodily second coming millennial period of Jewish conversion, that there is a return to Temple Worship. This should be a red flag to your Christology that absolutely sinks this system beyond any possible consideration, and yet this is the most commonly held position in the US today. So many passages suggest that there is no role for the Temple after the Ascension that this idea is preposterous. The Historic Premillennialism view softens some of the rhetoric, no rapture and no post second coming temple worship, but still has a revolt of believers after the second coming of Christ, and the split of the second coming into two events separated by a thousand years. Even if you turn my prophets seeing two mountains as one argument from a few weeks ago back on me now, do you really think that having believers in a millennial kingdom revolting against Christ is theologically sound? And the last issue against these premillennial systems is the splitting of the Second Coming and Judgment Day into two events. There are simply too many passages that suggest that these are one event. Let’s try out this passage of Matthew 25 for starters. It all sounds like one event when Christ comes back to me, and, frankly, to the reformers as well.
The other two systems either do not look at a millennial kingdom at all, or that the millennial kingdom is figurative. The idea of pre- versus post- millennialism is based upon whether the Second Coming is before or after the millennium. In these last two systems, since the Second Coming is concurrent with Judgment, the Second Coming is after the millennial period. The difference between these two models is that Post-Millennialism still requires the transformation of this present age into a predominantly Christian realm prior to the Second Coming, while Amillennialism doesn’t care about the state of this present evil age, only that the Gospel has reached all corners of the world. This difference between the need to actually convert the majority of the world versus actually just deliver the Gospel to all corners of the world is subtle, but important. One could certainly argue that Christ may come back at any time now if you are Amillennial in your views.
So, which system do I support, if I haven’t made this clear yet? The millennial arguments did not come into popular believe until the last 150 years. The Chilists, or historical premillennialist appeared in the fourth century, but their view was refuted by Augustine and later the reformers. Amillennialism as a system satisfies all of the pertinent texts without leaving unanswered questions and contradictions. Therefore, the hour of the King’s return is completely unknown, and it could be tonight, and it might not be for thousands of years still.
The most important aspect of eschatology is that your hermeneutic for Biblical interpretation determines your eschatology. A completely Christocentric hermeneutic combined with Covenant Systematic Theology yields an amillennial view of the end times. These things go together naturally and easily. If you keep those charts available whenever you read passages that have eschatological importance, and they are everywhere in the Bible, and then go through the exercise of deciding how to interpret these passages in each of the four systems that I presented, you will soon see both which system you prefer, and what assumptions you have to make for that eschatology to work.
—Troll—
No comments:
Post a Comment