That is, things pertaining to the end, not the last things that will be addressed in this series. Today I'll be discussing the end of the world.
There are a few core things that we must establish right from the start when discussing the end of the world, that are universal to Christians. First, that the world will end. This earth is a temporary home, a place that will be destroyed and replaced in God's perfect timing. It is our responsibility (mankind has been placed in stewardship over it) but it is not our ultimate, perfect home. Second, that the end will include, at some point in the proceedings, the literal, physical return of Jesus Christ to consummate His direct and overt rule over creation, overthrow evil, judge the living and the dead, and initiate the perfected state of creation where He will live with His people for all eternity. Some views hold that He will do all of these things at once, others space them out, but the exact temporal relationship of these events is a secondary issue. The point is that His return will be real, physical, and undeniable. Views which hold to a purely spiritual or hidden return of Christ are, by definition, outside the bounds of historical orthodox Christian teaching. Third, that we will not know the time of the end of the world until it is happening. God has not given us information that can be used to accurately date the return of Christ or the events immediately surrounding His return, and we have assurances that He will not provide that information at a later date. Anyone who claims to have divine revelation indicating an accurate date when we can expect the return of Christ is a false teacher, even if by some statistical oddity they happen to pick the correct date.
The bulk of the dispute among Christians concerning the end of the world is about sequence, almost always centered on two events: The Millennium, and The Great Tribulation. Adherents to every view here draw sources from various places throughout the Bible, but both concepts are really given their identity in the Revelation or Apocalypse of John, the last book in the Bible. This is, ultimately, the reason these concepts are so hotly debated; Revelation is, itself, a book that faces a great deal of dispute over how to rightly interpret it. Without agreement on how to even read the book, we will not come to a consensus on how to understand it. Why this book in particular occupies such a contested place in Christian thought is that it is a different genre than the entire rest of scripture; it has parallels to prophetic books in the Old Testament, but unlike them it offers little, if any, context for most of its visions and no clear interpretations. This lack is shared with wisdom literature, like Proverbs or Job, but these tend to lack sweeping prophetic visions and are more concerned with a life spent well in God's world, which is very hard (if not impossible) to impose on the narrative of Revelation. The beginning is very much suited to study as part of the general epistles, but the exact relationship between the opening letters to the seven churches and the following prophetic visions isn't overtly given within the text; except that it suited the purposes of Christ, for whatever reason, to bundle them together into one delivery. It clearly isn't history or biography or law. It isn't alone in Greek or even Christian-adjacent writing, as there are other apocalyptic works from the first few centuries of Christianity and beyond, but the fact that Revelation is scripture and these others are not demands that it be held to a higher standard than they, but this is little help. Presumably it's doing what they are trying to do, in that it is an accurate and trustworthy form of the claims they are making, but the apocalyptic genre itself is fairly nebulous about whether it's even talking about the future or characterizing the present. What we are left with, then, is a book that cannot be easily placed in our standard boxes, and must be analyzed on its own terms; assuming we know what those terms are. For the purposes of my theology and this article, we will be operating from the assumption that Revelation was written to inform people in the present how to trust, follow, and love God rightly in light of the future. As such, the prophetic elements are taken as things which are yet to come, that highlight the need for the warnings and affirmations found in the seven letters that preface those visions. The book of Revelation, then, is all of one piece; just like the other epistles, Revelation gives truth and application, and unlike most of the other epistles, this truth is new information about future events delivered in prophetic visions. So what are these two events that find their definition in Revelation?
Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, holding the key of the abyss and a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold of the dragon, the serpent of old, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years; and he threw him into the abyss, and shut [it] and sealed [it] over him, so that he would not deceive the nations any longer, until the thousand years were completed; after these things he must be released for a short time. Then I saw thrones, and they sat on them, and judgment was given to them. And I [saw] the souls of those who had been beheaded because of their testimony of Jesus and because of the word of God, and those who had not worshiped the beast or his image, and had not received the mark on their forehead and on their hand; and they came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were completed. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is the one who has a part in the first resurrection; over these the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ and will reign with Him for a thousand years.
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The Great Tribulation
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Then one of the elders answered, saying to me, "These who are clothed in the white robes, who are they, and where have they come from?" I said to him, "My lord, you know." And he said to me, "These are the ones who come out of the great tribulation, and they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.
Revelation 7:13-14 (NASB)
For then there will be a great tribulation, such as has not occurred since the beginning of the world until now, nor ever will. Unless those days had been cut short, no life would have been saved; but for the sake of the elect those days will be cut short.
Matthew 24:21-22 (NASB)
The sequence of events in Matthew, where the "Abomination of Desolation" is discussed and then people flee before the Great Tribulation, is sometimes associated with the idea of the Antichrist as a distinct character. This view was already established within Dispensational theology, but really hit the mainstream with the Left Behind books and movies. The basic idea is that there is a distinct person who will stand as a primary Antichrist world leader that will fulfill the evil desires of the world in rebellion against God and initiate a period of suffering by setting himself up as a divine, probably in the Jewish temple in Jerusalem. This, of course, relies on a few things falling into place (like the re-establishment of Jewish temple worship in Jerusalem), and assumes much. For instance, the term 'antichrist' is used primarily as a class of spirit or false teacher in scripture, rather than a descriptor for a specific individual, and some of the things attributed to this Antichrist are more clearly described in Revelation as being the actions of someone bearing a different title (generally the Beast or the false prophet of the Beast).
But discussion about the Great Tribulation is incomplete without discussion of the rapture, since the two events are often tied together. The rapture is the belief that Christians, alive and dead, will be removed from the world and taken up to meet Christ in the sky, to return with Him when He arrives to establish His direct and absolute rule over the Earth. Their relationship is so bound together in modern theology, in fact, that the primary views of the rapture are named for their relationship to the Great Tribulation. They are:
- Pre-Tribulation: This view holds that the rapture will occur before the Great Tribulation and is almost universally tied to the belief that the Great Tribulation will be a seven-year period initiated by the political rise of the Antichrist, in which the world enjoys roughly 3.5 years of peace and prosperity under his influence, at which point the Antichrist desecrates the Jewish temple in Jerusalem by declaring himself God there; this launches the remaining 3.5 years of global suffering under the tyrannical rule of the Antichrist. It is most commonly held as part of Dispensationalism, because it assumes that the Great Tribulation is a period of judgment which doesn't apply to Christians (some views hold, in fact, that it is specifically a time of judgment against the Jewish people for rejecting Christ; this view is not universal, but is fairly innate to Dispensational thought itself). Whatever the nature of the Great Tribulation, a pre-trib view holds that Christians will not be present for it aside from those who come to faith during it.
- Mid-Tribulation: This is the least common of the three views, and while it largely agrees with the timeline and purposes as stated by the pre-trib view, it holds that God will wait to withdraw His people until just before the worst bits happen; generally this means the rapture happens as part of the sequence of events in which the Antichrist declares himself to be God.
- Post-Tribulation: This view holds that the rapture will happen only after the Great Tribulation has passed, and does not require that the Great Tribulation even be a specific period of time. It is the belief that Christians meeting Christ in the air are not escaping anything, but rather welcoming Christ during His triumphal return. This view holds that the return of Christ and the rapture occur together, which means that Christians would rise up to meet Christ and then immediately accompany Him as He continues His descent to Earth. It allows for almost any view of the Great Tribulation itself, from the seven-year timeline held by the other two views to a belief that the Great Tribulation is just a way to describe the fact that Christians can become martyrs during this time, and any view in between. It is frequently paired with amillenialism, but that connection is more important to the amill view than to the post-trib view (that is, almost every amill is post-trib; a great many post-trib adherents are not amill).
I hold to a post-tribulation view and a belief that the Great Tribulation is more of a general descriptor of bad times than a specific time period. I believe that the Abomination of Desolation and the following need to flee as described in Matthew 24:15-20 is the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 ad, and the period Christ describes partly as the Great Tribulation and the age of false Christs is more or less just the current period of time beginning with the fall of Jerusalem and continuing until Christ returns. I am, admittedly, less certain on that idea at this time than I am of the claim that the rapture is post-trib. I am absolutely convinced the rapture is post-trib, for a few reasons. One is simply the nature of God toward His people; throughout scripture, God leaves His people to deal with trying times, offering them His presence through those times but not removing them from them. I do not see in the God of the Bible a tendency that would point to Him pulling His people out of the Great Tribulation. But, more importantly, the Bible tends to describe the rapture as happening after the Great Tribulation or in conjunction with Christ's return. Consider these two passages where we get a lot of our idea about the rapture:
For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of [the] archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord.
1 Thessalonians 4:16-17 (NASB)
But immediately after the tribulation of those days THE SUN WILL BE DARKENED, AND THE MOON WILL NOT GIVE ITS LIGHT, AND THE STARS WILL FALL from the sky, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. And then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the SON OF MAN COMING ON THE CLOUDS OF THE SKY with power and great glory. And He will send forth His angels with A GREAT TRUMPET and THEY WILL GATHER TOGETHER His elect from the four winds, from one end of the sky to the other.
Matthew 24:29-31 (NASB)
But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone. For the coming of the Son of Man will be just like the days of Noah. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and they did not understand until the flood came and took them all away; so will the coming of the Son of Man be. Then there will be two men in the field; one will be taken and one will be left. Two women [will be] grinding at the mill; one will be taken and one will be left.
Matthew 24:36-41 (NASB)
All told, then, I believe that the Great Tribulation is already underway, and that the judgment of God is already being poured out on the world in some measure. This present age will end with the triumphant return of Christ, with His people (alive and dead) rising to meet Him and join His procession to Earth, at which point He will initiate the Millennium of direct, overt reign in an undeniable and unmistakable coronation. After the Millennium is over, the final judgment will come, followed by the institution of the New Heaven and New Earth, where we will live with Christ for eternity.
I stated that putting Donald Trump in the White House would legitimize a practice calling itself Christianity that has little, if anything, to do with Christ. That his election would not only encourage the false teachers he surrounded himself with during his campaign, but that it would embolden a host of problems that the church was harboring and failing to address. This past Sunday, the sermon touched on one of the ways I feel that concern has been realized.
The Foreigner Among Us |
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But we proved to be gentle among you, as a nursing [mother] tenderly cares for her own children. Having so fond an affection for you, we were well-pleased to impart to you not only the gospel of God but also our own lives, because you had become very dear to us.
1 Thessalonians 2:7-8 (NASB)
The big question of the sermon was, do we reach out to the people around us with the same love and passion that Paul is here describing? He noted that churches in America have a particular opportunity of world evangelism based on the fact that the world is coming to us, rather than requiring we go to it. And when they come here, we have an opportunity to reach out and build relationships and show the love of Christ to them by sharing, not only the gospel, but our lives with them. But, of course, that relies on us actually welcoming them. So the sermon reminded me of some things.
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God of our Sojourning |
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"Thus has the LORD of hosts said, 'Dispense true justice and practice kindness and compassion each to his brother; and do not oppress the widow or the orphan, the stranger or the poor; and do not devise evil in your hearts against one another.'
Zechariah 7:9-10 (NASB)
In Deuteronomy, God repeatedly makes the case that part of the reason Israel should remember to care for the sojourner among them is that they were, themselves, sojourners in Egypt. It's worth noting that, during this address, Moses isn't speaking to people who were adults in Egypt; this is after the forty years of wandering, when the generation that came from Egypt had died out. This is not a command given to the generation that remembers Egypt. Israel as a body was a sojourner, and is told here that it must never forget that fact.
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He executes justice for the orphan and the widow, and shows His love for the alien by giving him food and clothing. So show your love for the alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt.
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But you are A CHOSEN RACE, A royal PRIESTHOOD, A HOLY NATION, A PEOPLE FOR [God's] OWN POSSESSION, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; for you once were NOT A PEOPLE, but now you are THE PEOPLE OF GOD; you had NOT RECEIVED MERCY, but now you have RECEIVED MERCY. Beloved, I urge you as aliens and strangers to abstain from fleshly lusts which wage war against the soul.
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There are two grounds on which this argument stands. The first is that, while we are not under the Mosaic law as a people redeemed by grace, the ordinances given to Israel nevertheless point to some understanding of who God is and what His people should look like and we can learn from that; in this particular case, we need not conceptualize the lesson being given, as we may with laws like those banning mixed fabrics, since the reminder to care for the foreigner is given an explanation already.
The second is the nature of that explanation, and the fact that it has not changed. That the heart of God goes out to the foreigner remains equally true as long as God's heart remains the same, and we know that He does not change. And His call to remember the days of sojourning are true for Christians who sojourn in a fallen world just as much as it was true of Israelites who sojourned in Egypt. |
How can we be the people of God if we will not act how God calls us to act, and love how He has loved us?
Objections |
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Of the first, it should be noted that our government is not actually set up to operate that way. Whether or not the apostles would have been at the borders of the Roman Empire welcoming travelers is hardly relevant when their relationship to government was fundamentally different from ours. The simplest way to put it is this: in a governmental system designed to be of the people, for the people, and by the people, what we task the government with doing is something we are doing. This also comes up in matters of social welfare, the claim that we are called to support the widow and the orphan and help the poor, sure, but we are never called to empower a government to take our money and have them do the supporting.* But this creates a division where one does not exist. When we vote for or against a program or a candidate, we are telling the government how we want it to operate on our behalf. We are directing it to function as our arms in carrying out large-scale operations beyond the scope of what we can do individually. It is no different from giving money and input to our church, or our denomination, about things we want to see happen.
As such, there is no division. If we are going to show God's love to the sojourner among us, we have a direct responsibility to support programs that allow sojourners to exist among us. Our attempts to support programs that restrict or remove sojourners from our midst are nothing less than an act of rebellion to the mission of our God.
The second is personal/national safety and, while literally all available data shows that there is no considerable threat from allowing refugees (or immigrants in general) in, the main focus for us as Christians is that our nation ultimately doesn't matter and our lives are already lost. We owe our nation no more allegiance than we owe Kazakhstan, because, as stated above, this is not our home. We have certain obligations to respect the authority that we live under, but that does not mean we give that authority more power and worth than it deserves. Nor will it be eternal. America will fall someday, whether to mortal forces or to the coming Kingdom of our Lord. What, exactly, are we preserving? And is preserving it more important than obedience to God?
As for personal safety, this is never guaranteed to us. We walk the path of martyrs. It is better for a terrorist to walk into a church and be greeted with the gospel than to allow him to continue in ignorance of the offer of salvation, even if he destroys that church and everyone in it. It is better to lose our lives by opening our doors to the unsaved than to live a long life and stand before God having never carried out His commands because we were more afraid of man than of Him.
Do not fear those who kill the body but are unable to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.
Matthew 10:28 (NASB)
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