Eschatology

God’s Kingdom from Genesis to Revelation

/ Brandon D. Smith / 1 Comment

41BrepIX6yL._SX326_BO1,204,203,200_The biblical definition of “kingdom” has long been debated. A classic evangelical view taught to me in grad school was George Eldon Ladd’s: the kingdom is God’s sovereign rule. Others have pushed a more social kingdom, arguing that God’s kingdom exists anywhere that social justice is being practiced. Of course, both of these definitions represent two extreme poles.

In his new book, The Kingdom of God and the Glory of the Cross, Patrick Schreiner sets out to give us a more holistic understanding of God’s kingdom. In a twist on Graeme Goldsworthy’s classic definition, Schreiner defines the kingdom as “the King’s power over the King’s people in the King’s place” (18). In just 143 pages, Schreiner clearly and meticulously defends this definition from Genesis to Revelation. Don’t take my word for it; read the book.

Perhaps the best summary of the kingdom story comes near the end of his chapter on Revelation:

The tree of the knowledge of good and evil seemed to send the kingdom plan on a downward spiral, but it was through the tree of the cross that the kingdom was fulfilled. Now the tree of life [in Rev. 21] consummates the kingdom story started so long ago. The dragon is slain; the Lamb has won; the people are free; they are home. (130)

 

John the Seer vs. Caesar

/ Brandon D. Smith / 3 Comments

Screen-Shot-2017-02-25-at-8.51.28-PM-300x299While compiling notes for my dissertation on the Book of Revelation, I came across this note on Revelation 1:16 in Craig Koester’s Revelation commentary:

The section climaxes by noting that [Jesus] holds seven stars in his right hand (Rev 1:16). This cosmic imagery conveys sovereignty. An analogy appears on a coin from Domitian’s reign that depicts the emperor’s deceased son as young Jupiter, sitting on the globe in a posture of world dominion. The coin’s inscription calls him “divine Caesar, son of the emperor Domitian,” and the imagery shows him extending his hands to seven stars in a display of divinity and power. John has already identified Jesus as the ruler of kings on earth (1:5), and the imagery of the seven stars fits the book’s larger context, which contrasts the reign of Christ with that of imperial Rome. (p. 253)

Koester is referring to the coin in the image (above), used in Rome around AD 88-96 during the reign of the brutal Caesar Domitian. Koester’s insights here give us an interesting look at the background of John the Seer’s writing during hostile Roman persecution. It also helps us think about the later date of Revelation’s writing (the end of the first century) versus a potential earlier dating (some say it might’ve been written closer to AD 65). This is enough to chew on a little bit.

But it offers us more than that. This information helps shed light on the theology of Revelation.

First, it serves as an example that much of Revelation’s imagery (beasts, numbers, etc.) is a direct shot at the Roman empire. Many believe (and I’m largely convinced) that Revelation is written during intense Roman persecution and this letter was first written to encourage the church during that time. However, as a non-preterist, I believe portions of the letter are speaking of future events—i,e., Jesus hasn’t come back yet; the New Jerusalem isn’t here yet; etc. In any event, this note might help us better understand the anti-imperial leanings of John.

Second, it shows us how high John’s Christology was. He’s not merely putting Jesus on par with some exalted or glorified person. Rather, he’s portraying Jesus as divine—specifically pitting Jesus’s true divine sovereignty against the supposed divine sovereignty of the Roman emperorship. Roman caesars liked to pretend to be gods, but John is reminding them and us that there’s only one true God. Jupiter is seated on the world with stars hovering around him? Ha! Jesus created the world and clutches the stars in his hand.

As I argue in my dissertation and elsewhere, John explicitly and purposely ties Jesus into the divine identity of YHWH, and this little note only adds to the case.

Racism Is Hell on Earth

/ Brandon D. Smith / Leave a comment

The recent scenes in Charlottesville, Shelbyville, and my hometown of Murfreesboro were examples of real-life, in-your-face hell on earth. As white supremacists marched down the streets with Confederate and Nazi flags, screaming racial slurs and hailing Hitler, we saw the antithesis of heaven’s demography:

You are worthy to take the scroll
and to open its seals,
because you were slaughtered,
and you purchased people
for God by your blood
from every tribe and language
and people and nation.
You made them a kingdom
and priests to our God,
and they will reign on the earth. (Rev. 5:9-10)

The tree of life was on each side of the river, bearing twelve kinds of fruit, producing its fruit every month. The leaves of the tree are for healing the nations, and there will no longer be any curse. (Rev. 22:2-3)

This gathering of nations—from the Greek root word ἔθνος, where we get the word “ethnicity”—is what heaven looks like now, and gives a glimpse New Jerusalem’s eternal population. Eternity will not be white faces marching to destroy colors through the Nazi flag of death. Instead, it will be faces from every single hue being healed by the tree of life. Jesus’s blood has redeemed people from every ethnicity, and every ethnicity is and will be represented in God’s kingdom. In terms of race and culture and nationality, diversity is heavenly; uniformity is hellish.

But this raises the most important question: what should we do about it?

On the one hand, the most important thing has already been done. Ephesians 2 says that God is right now destroying racial and ethnic division through the cross. White supremacists are not original. We’ve seen this sort of evil and hatred throughout American history and the histories of nations throughout the world. They fancy themselves as revolutionaries and heroes, but they are stale, generic villains. The arc of history bends away from them. Their legacy will be summed up in one word: defeat.

On the other hand, this has massive implications for Christians. Matthew 28:18-20 says that we’re called to make disciples of all nations. I used to think of this as merely a call to “evangelism”—telling lost people about Jesus. However, it has become more and more clear to me that this also must be paired with 2 Corinthians 5:11-21: Christians are ministers of reconciliation. This ministry has countless implications, but a clear implication is that making disciples of all nations means breaking down walls of racial and cultural divisions.

As new creations, we are called to mirror eternity in this life. One foundational way to preview eternity is to intentionally seek justice and equality for people of every nation, tribe, and tongue. If there are no walls in eternity, there should be no walls right now.

First, then, we should admit our biases and blindness. As Christians, we are fundamentally called to be humble, teachable, peacemaking, wall-smashing, ministers of reconciliation. So our first instinct should be to listen, not to shut our ears and throw out insults and dismissive platitudes. I can only imagine how much Satan grins at Christians on Twitter shouting “Marxist!” — as though that’s some silver bullet to end all debate — instead of asking questions. If we can’t recognize that systemic issues in our land — a land whose unifying moments (Emancipation Proclamation, desegregation, voting rights, and Affirmative Action) were merely legal concessions and not intrinsically built into our foundation — then we’re just not ready to listen to those who feel the most hurt by it. We don’t have to agree on every nuance or policy or logical conclusion, but there should be a baseline recognition of the obvious historical and ongoing separation in our country. The Christian call to pursue unity isn’t optional. Don’t point the finger; lend an ear.

Second and relatedly, we should put this into action by not huddling up with people like us, waiting on God to sort it out later. That would be easy. Instead, we should fight tooth-and-nail against the temptation to be comfortable and monolithic. The cross of Christ demands that we press on to the point of shed blood to love our brothers and sisters of all races and ethnicities. Our churches should be as diverse or even more diverse than our neighborhoods (imagine Sunday morning at your church being the most diverse gathering in your neighborhood each week!). Our dinner tables should likewise have regular seats filled with those who don’t look like us. As Russell Moore so aptly puts it, in the fight for racial reconciliation, “We’re not getting anywhere if we gather in church with people we’d gather with if Jesus were still dead.” The death and resurrection of Jesus mean that sin and death are dead—taking hatred and division to hell with them.

To my white brothers and sisters: don’t merely post on social media about your frustration about race relations in our country. Don’t let your actions be relegated to hashtags and retweets. True reconciliation happens around dinner tables and in marching lines. True empathy comes not only from watching another iPhone video, but from putting your arms around someone whose skin doesn’t match yours. True friendship comes not from a Twitter follow or a Sunday morning sentiment, but from a lifelong commitment to co-suffering and co-laboring. True love doesn’t happen with a half-hearted apology, but with an open mind to be an active part of the solution.

Though personal relationships are the most important, it would also help to read some books on race by black authors. Let their perspective help shape the narrative for you. For example, read Life and Times of Frederick Douglass by Douglass and United: Captured by God’s Vision for Diversity by Newbell.

Racism is hell on earth. But we as Christians are called to pray for God’s will to be done on earth as it is in heaven. You may feel like only one friendship or one conversation is a waste, but it isn’t. Nothing you do in this life is inconsequential. God works through even the smallest steps, however awkward and heavy they may seem. As Dr. King said, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” Make your anywhere count.

Basics for Interpreting the Book of Revelation

/ Brandon D. Smith / 1 Comment

I didn’t grow up a Christian, but as soon as I began following Christ and attending a local church, I was almost immediately introduced to the Book of Revelation via the movie Left Behind. Like most Southern Baptist churches in the 90s, we talked a lot about the rapture, the Antichrist, the Tribulation, and miscellaneous details we could supposedly understand by decoding Revelation’s bizarre language and imagery.

Relatedly, I always remember being told I’d spend forever in Heaven, once I was raptured with Jesus and this world was destroyed. When I thought about Revelation, it was mostly wars, meteors, and desolation. Many of you can probably relate. I’m grateful, though, that I’ve been able to study Revelation for many years now, including as a major piece of my dissertation. In my experience, Revelation has been underplayed, under-appreciated, and simply misrepresented.

While there are many ways to approach interpreting Revelation, here are a few basics to consider first.

1. Revelation is not a book about destruction and fear.

Revelation certainly has its destructive elements—bowls of wrath poured out, beasts, the fall of Babylon, etc. However, these elements point to a greater hope, a hope found in God’s justice in his war against sin and death and evil. These sometimes terrifying elements of the book serve to show us that God is making all things new and redeeming the world fractured by the Fall (Rev. 21-22), not that he’s coming for us with a fireball in one hand and a lighting bolt in the other. Revelation has destruction within it, but it isn’t about that. It’s about our hope in the culmination of God’s promises.

2. Revelation is not about escaping Earth.

“This is not my home, I’m just passing through” is a sweet hymn, but it’s wrong. We don’t spend eternity in some far away place in the sky. Rather, we spend eternity right here, on this planet, the way God intended from the beginning (Gen. 1-2). This place is our home, though it’s certainly due for a major renovation. Sin didn’t cause a Plan B in God’s sovereign blueprint. He’s not abandoning his original plan for an Earth sprawling with image-bearers just because we messed things up; no, he will resurrect his people just like he resurrected his Son (1 Cor. 15). Heaven and Earth were joined together in the beginning, and they’ll come back together in the end (Rev. 21-22).

3. Revelation is not merely about future, end-times events.

This is probably the most misunderstood portion of Revelation. To be sure, it is an apocalypse in the sense that it deals with visions, prophecy, judgment and redemption, etc. However, we should remember that the book is also addressed to a specific audience in specific time (Rev. 1-3), and deals with issues that the original audience could understand and apply. It’s safe to say that Rev. 21-22 are about future events that haven’t happened yet, but the rest of the book is debatable. Likely, most of Revelation simultaneously applies both to its original audience and every generation afterward. Many of the allusions to Babylon, an antichrist, etc. can be applied to Rome and the Caesar the original audience knew, while also being representations or types for many generations of worldly kingdoms and rulers.

4. Revelation is not divorced from the rest of the Bible.

The numbers vary depending on who you ask, but most scholars say that Revelation has approximately 600 references or allusions to the Old Testament. In my study of Revelation, I’ve seen these allusions over and over again. Revelation’s author, John, never directly quotes the OT, but there are unmistakable allusions or hat-tips to the OT every few verses. John likely sees himself as a type of prophet, self-consciously telling the story of how Jesus finally fulfills all of the promises and expectations of the prophets, from Daniel to Isaiah to Zechariah to many others. Revelation is very much a capstone to the Bible’s unified storyline, not a freaky add-on to the end.

Angelic Bodies, Human Bodies, and the Intermediate State

/ Matt Emerson / 4 Comments
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I have just finished Paul Griffith’s Decreation: The Last Things of All Creatures (Waco: Baylor, 2014). In it his aim is to explicate the novissimum, or last thing, of all creatures, animate (angelic, human, animals) and inanimate (plants, rocks, etc.). While there is much to commend and to critique, my purpose for reading is my continued research on Christ’s descent to the dead. And although, as Griffiths notes, the intermediate state is not properly a novissimum, it is intricately connected to each creature’s last thing and so he deals with it in this book, albeit more briefly than other topics.

Other than mapping the options for those persons in the intermediate state (heaven, hell, and purgatory [Griffiths is Roman Catholic]), the other main concern of Griffith’s chapter on this issue is to describe “the intermediate state . . . [and] the nature and capacities of the soul therein, understood as a kind of body, and as the only trace of the human remaining in the incarnate state” (178, emphasis mine). I highlight that middle phrase because it is my particular concern with the descensus: how can we speak of Christ’s soul descending to the dead, and in what way(s) is his own “intermediate state” instructive for understanding ours? Griffiths provides one avenue for answering those questions by arguing that disincarnate souls have bodies.

He bases this point on his understanding of both angels and timespace. Of angels, Griffiths says,

If the created order is by definition spatio-temporal, and if the LORD is by definition not, then angels, being creatures, must be located firmly within the created order, and that is best done by clarity about their spatio-temporality and (therefore) the fact that they are bodies. … We must say, if we are to think with the church, that angels lack bodies if by “body” is meant a solid, fleshly body like that of animals, including humans (angels are not incarnate; they have no caro; we must also say that they lack bodies if by that is meant the continuous extension in space of aggregated inanimate matter (angels are not in this way like rocks or bodies of water). We must also say that they are not eternal (angels are not the LORD), which is the same as to say that they are part of the created order, and thus temporal in some sense, and that they can, again in some sense, occupy or appear in space. And if spatio-temorality implies body…then there must be a sense in which angels have bodies, or are embodied (120-21, emphasis mine).

This is a foundational truth for Griffiths (and indeed, for the Tradition) – the Creator/creature divide means only God is unbound by space and time. Angels must, therefore, be located within timespace (even if it is in a different manner than other creatures), and this entails having a body of some sort. Griffiths goes on to describe angels as “permanently disincarnate animate bodies,” and says this about them:

 … In ordinary English usage, terms like “body,” “flesh,” “matter,” and “mass” are not clearly distinguished, and we affirm the existence of many kinds of thing (electrons and quarks, for instance) whose capacity for spatio-temporal location is very unlike that of enfleshed animate bodies. … “Body” names capacity for spatio-temporal location, and thus for availability and responsiveness to other creatures with spatio-temporal location…. Bodies come, however, in many kinds.

In other words, all creatures have bodies of some sort, precisely because they are creaturely – they are located in timespace. But there are different kinds of bodies. To speak in logical terms, all creatures are embodied, but not all creatures are enfleshed. “Flesh” is a subset of “body.” Continuing in this vein, Griffiths says that,

Angelic bodies, according to this definition [located in timespace], have mass, but not, or not necessarily, matter. … “Mass” … names, in the discourse of physics, a body’s resistance to acceleration by force acting upon it (inertial mass), and its gravitational attraction to other bodies (gravitational mass). These may be properties of bodies without matter, which is to say bodies consisting only of energy … [T]o speak of a body’s mass, then, is another way of speaking about its availability and responsiveness to other bodies, without necessarily attributing to them the weight and aggregated extension in space characteristic of animate fleshly bodies. Angelic bodies, I should think (in this like the bodies of the separated souls), are bodies whose mass is immaterial… (122).

In other words, angels are embodied much like quarks and electrons are embodied, albeit as animate rather than inanimate.

The key phrase for my purposes is “in this like the bodies of the separated souls,” for in his chapter on the intermediate state, Griffiths explicitly compares again the permanently disincarnate animate bodies of angels with the temporarily disincarnate animate bodies of souls that have been separated from their fleshly body by death. In other words, according to Griffiths, separated souls exist as embodied and locatable, albeit in a different type of embodiment than the one they experienced prior to their death in their fallen enfleshed existence and than the one they will experience at the general resurrection of the dead and their subsequent novissimum.

Where are they? Griffiths says,

Asking where they are in this sense is like asking where an electron is at the moment: a malformed question. The best answer to it is that they are, disincarnately, more or less intimate, depending on their state – those in hell very much less, those in heaven very much more – with the locus-tempus that is the LORD (181).

This understanding of both spatio-temporality and of angels and separated human souls as “bodies,” albeit unenfleshed ones, has obvious implications for both our understanding of the intermediate state and of Christ’s descent. I am still working through the ramifications but nonetheless found Griffiths’ approach worthy of attention.

Forgotten Saturday

/ Matt Emerson / 3 Comments

I am knee deep in research for my LATC paper in January on the relationship between the burial of Jesus and eschatology. The day between Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection, or Holy Saturday, was until recently, in my experience and thought, relatively unimportant. Mark Davis’ words capture my, and perhaps many Christians’, view of this middle day.

. . . even when the burial remains in a church’s reading as part of the Passion Sunday or Good Friday lection, it is overlooked in lieu of the crucifixion itself, or of the hints of the resurrection found in the elaborate detail of guards and the Chief Priest’s anticipations of foul play with Jesus’ body by the disciples. After all, touching though it is, one is tempted to see Joseph’s burial of Jesus as just a necessary moment along the way from the cross to the empty tomb, as opposed to having meaning in itself (Int 60.1 [2006]: 76, emphasis mine).

My own opinion, though, is that there is much redemptive activity, theo-drama (to borrow a phrase from von Balthasar and Vanhoozer), going on. It may be behind the scenes and invisible to our fallible physical eyes, but I’m increasingly convinced that it is not arbitrary that Jesus spent three days (rather than 3 hours or 3 minutes or even no time at all) in the tomb.

There have been a number of options put forth throughout church history, and many are probably most familiar with the idea of the harrowing of hell. In this view Christ descends to the supposed limbo of the just (righteous Jews and pagans who lived before Christ) to release them into heaven, or maybe purgatory. Von Balthasar innovated on this traditional Roman Catholic doctrine and said Christ descended, in Catholic cosmology, to the very depths of hell, where his whole person experienced the full wrath of God, separating him from the Father and the Spirit.  I find this traditional Roman Catholic doctrine to be a late medieval development and relying on unbiblical positions regarding covenantal continuity, justification, and cosmology, and von Balthasar’s innovation seems to me to be a Trinitarian impossibility.

Both of these positions, however erroneous they may be (and I find them both to be biblically unjustifiable), do still bring out an important part of Christ’s work, namely his defeat of death and Hades. Christians historically have confessed that this is the purpose of Christ’s time in the tomb on Holy Saturday. Luther captures what I think is the more biblical position on this matter when he says in his Sermon at Torgau (1533) that Christ descended to Hades and ” . . . destroyed the power of hell and stripped the devil of all his might.” Christ in his death – not only in his crucifixion but in his burial – defeated death, Hades (the place of the dead), and the devil. This is part of the meaning of Holy Saturday. We of course cannot separate the cross from the resurrection, and we also ought not to separate Holy Saturday from Good Friday and Easter Sunday. They are each part of the one work of Christ, which stretches from his life, death, burial, and resurrection to his ascension and sending of the Spirit and ultimately to his return. Each piece accomplishes the unified but still distinct parts of redemption. While Christ’s crucifixion vicariously substitutes and his resurrection inaugurates the new creation, his burial is the defeat of death and Hades. While he is sealed in the tomb he is binding the strong man.

 

Book Review: Essential Eschatology

/ Matt Emerson / 2 Comments

John Phelan wants to convince readers of Essential Eschatology: Our Present and Future Hope (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2013) that, “Far from being at the periphery of the faith, it is no exaggeration to say that eschatology is the heart of Christianity” (11). Phelan, who serves as Senior Professor of Theological Studies at North Park Theological Seminary, believes that “. . . Christianity . . . is eschatological to its core” (17), primarily due to the fact that Israel’s future hope is consummated in Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, a hope in which the church now participates. In ten chapters, Phelan seeks to convince readers that eschatology is centered on the person and work of Jesus and the subsequent kingdom-centered missional task of the church, rather than on timelines and charts of the end times. Chapter topics include the church and the kingdom (chs. 2, 5, and 7), resurrection (ch. 3), the second coming, which includes judgment (ch. 4), Jesus’ return (ch. 6), and the millennium (ch. 8), and Israel and the church (chs. 9 and 10).

Essential Eschatology succeeds time and again at demonstrating how eschatology is central to the Christian faith, namely because it shows how this often controversial doctrine is focused on Jesus’ life and work rather than on differing views of the rapture and millennium. By shifting the reader’s gaze from theories of reading Revelation onto the person and work of Jesus, Phelan breathes new life into a systematic loci that is often ignored, passed over, or summarized with a simplistic “it’ll all pan out in the end.” Too often eschatology is relegated to a last lecture in a theology class or avoided altogether in the church, on the one hand, or it is forced to focus on timelines, charts, and matching current events with texts from Daniel and Revelation on the other hand. Rather than either of these two options, according to Phelan, “Christian eschatology is a critical source of hope, not just in the future but in the present as well” (48). This is because Jesus fulfills the hope of Israel as articulated in the Old Testament, brings the end of time into the middle of time in his life, death, and resurrection, and empowers the church through his Spirit to live between the times as signs of his inaugurated kingdom. Church life is thus life in the last days, an eschatological life that both lives in the power of Christ’s inaugurated end times work and in anticipation of the consummation of it at his second coming. Additionally, Phelan correctly notes that this future hope for the church is not one of unbodily existence in an ethereal sphere, but a thoroughly physical renewal of all creation in which the church dwells with God. Phelan should be thoroughly commended for re-focusing this vitally important doctrine on Jesus and his renewal of all things rather than on charts and tables.

That being said, there are a few cautions for readers. First, Phelan appears to buy in to the typical bifurcation between Old Testament teaching and New Testament thought, namely in his assumption that the OT does not say anything definitive about hoping for the resurrection until very late (51-59) or about the afterlife. This “developmental” view of doctrine is apparent in a number of places (e.g. his discussion of the law, p. 93). In my opinion this does not do justice to the complex and often narratival way that the same doctrines we find taught in the epistolary literature of the NT are also taught conceptually in the OT. For instance, John Levinson has demonstrated that death and resurrection, specifically of the “beloved son”, is a recurring motif in the OT. While this may not be the same type of expression as, for instance, Dan. 12:2, it should not be discarded as a possible background for NT teaching on resurrection.

A second critique from my perspective is Phelan’s postmillennialism, specifically of the Wright-ian variety. Phelan is obviously indebted to N. T. Wright, and especially to Surprised by Hope, for his articulations of eschatology, so it should be no surprise to see Phelan talk about “practicing resurrection” (e.g. 33) and giving a very strong view of the church’s ability to change culture in ways that will be carried over into the new heavens and new earth. Not only do I find his postmillennial arguments unconvincing, I also think he incorrectly ties amillennialism to Constantianism. Even for those who identify with transformationalism rather than a two kingdoms approach or separatist approach, Phelan seems to me to go a bridge too far on the church’s ability to transform culture and on the biblical warrants for postmillennialism.

For these two reasons, as well as some other lingering questions, I would recommend this book, but only for situations that provided an opportunity for me to critique and correct. A college or seminary classroom, or perhaps an advanced level Sunday school class, would be ideal. Phelan is an engaging and clear writer, and corrects many of the misconceptions about this doctrine. He should be commended for showing how Jesus is central to eschatology and for demonstrating that the church’s power and hope lies in Christ’s end times inaugurating work that will be consummated at his return. I highly recommend it for this reason. Still, for the two cautions noted above, I recommend it for settings in which the teacher or professor has the opportunity to engage it critically with his or her audience.

**Thanks to Adrianna Wright and IVP Academic for providing a review copy.

The Importance of Eschatology

/ Matt Emerson / 7 Comments

Last night a friend asked me two questions via Twitter: why is eschatology important, and what are the dangers of holding an incorrect eschatology? I responded with a few 140 character bytes, but wanted to flesh those out a bit more here. I don’t know the motivations for my friend’s questions, but I’d imagine that, for many Christians, the first is borne out of a few popular assumptions about the doctrine, namely that it a) only deals with the very end of history, b) is tertiary and therefore relatively unimportant, and c) is basically summed up in the Left Behind series. None of these assumptions, though, at least in my opinion, strikes at the heart of this vitally important doctrine. So then, what about my friend’s questions?

First, why is eschatology important?

  1. Eschatology is important because the whole Bible is eschatological. The Old Testament moves forward with eschatological messianic hope (Sailhamer’s phrase) and culminates in Jesus’ first coming. The “last days” promised by the Old Testament, in which Yahweh comes to Israel and sends his Messianic Davidic king, Israel and the nations experience the tribulation, resurrection and the giving of the Spirit occur, etc., are inaugurated in Christ’s life, death, resurrection, ascension, and giving of the Spirit at Pentecost. But the NT structure demonstrates the bipartite nature of the last days; they are inaugurated at Christ’s first coming, but not consummated until his second. So the NT also looks forward and is imbued with a similar eschatological messianic hope, this time looking forward to his return.
  2. Eschatology is important because it provides the context and motivation for missions. As far as the former is concerned, the “last days” are the days in which we now live, and thus missions is set in the context of continuing to fulfill God’s promises to Israel through the church’s mission to the nations. The in-gathering of the Gentiles was part of the “last days” OT promises, and it is primarily this promise that continues to be fulfilled in the church’s evangelistic efforts around the globe. Concerning motivation, both Christ’s giving of the Spirit in the last days and the immanence of his return give Christians the proper impetus for sharing the gospel. They are empowered, and thus motivated, to do so by Christ’s Spirit, and they are compelled by their knowledge of his sudden return, a return that could happen at any moment. Knowing that unbelievers will spend eternity in the lake of fire (Rev. 21:8) ought to motivate all Christians to share the gospel liberally.
  3. Eschatology is important because it provides the shape of the Christian life. Salvation, and specifically sanctification, are embedded in the already/not yet shape of Christ’s work, namely that he has already paid the penalty for sin, defeated God’s enemies, and restored creation in his resurrected body but has not yet consummated these things in his final judgment at the second coming. In his application of his work to us by his Spirit, we thus benefit from his work in each of these areas, but still suffer from indwelling sin, sin that will not be ultimately removed and destroyed until his return.
  4. Finally (at least for this post), eschatology is important because it gives shape to human history. The end of time has dropped into the middle of time in Christ’s work. Christ’s life, death, resurrection, ascension, and giving of the Spirit bring to the world new creation (in his life, and especially in his miracles, and in his resurrected body), the defeat of God’s enemies and his reign over all the world (in his death, resurrection, and ascension), and the ability of his people to obey (through his own obedience on our behalf and its application to us in his giving of the Spirit).

Second, what are the dangers of an incorrect eschatology? I’m going to briefly note one danger I see in each of the typical eschatological positions. Much more could be said here, but this post is already long.

  1. Concerning postmillenial perspectives, there is the danger of having an over-realized eschatology, and especially one which attempts to bring about the effects of Christ’s work in this world through our own efforts, whether they be ecumenical, political, or social.
  2. Concerning premillennial perspectives, and especially pre-tribulational perspectives, there is the danger of abandoning the world to its own devices, believing that Christ’s kingdom will have no tangible effects on this life until his millennial reign. Further, from a pre-tribulational perspective, abandonment is sometimes derived from an emphasis on the tribulation period, in which God destroys most of what exists now, and on an understanding of “new heavens and new earth” that sees no continuity with this present creation.
  3. Finally, concerning amillennial perspectives, there is the danger of complacency with respect to Christ’s return. While the immanence of Christ’s return is especially palpable in a pre-trib pre-mil perspective, amillennials, at least in my reading, tend to so emphasize Christ’s first coming as the beginning of the last days that they under-emphasize his return, and especially its immanence.

So, what do you think? What am I missing? Would you articulate any of the points above differently, or strike one or more altogether?

 

A Good Word About Eschatology

/ Matt Emerson / 1 Comment

From Craig Blaising, “The Day of the Lord Will Come: An Exposition of 2 Peter 3:1-18,” Bibliotheca Sacra 169 (2012), 387-401 –

     …in spite of [the] apostolic emphasis on the relevance of Old Testament prophecy, many today avoid the topic of eschatology. Many pastors do not preach on it, and many teachers do not teach it. And why is that? Because, they say, it is controversial.

But what part of theology is not controversial? . . . Any area of theology can become controversial. That does not excuse us from an obligation to study and understand God’s Word nor from the responsibility of declaring to the church the whole counsel of God (Acts 20:27).

Pastoral neglect of eschatology has a negative impact on sanctification because such neglect hinders the church’s maturation in hope. Hope and holiness go together (388-89).