Statement of Faith: Last Things

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.

End Times Overture

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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?

The Millennium

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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.
Revelation 20:1-6 (NASB)

When I was a kid, I often heard this time period called the Millennial Reign or the Millennial Kingdom, but I don't hear those names for it so much anymore; and now that I type it out, I find myself wondering if this change in language is related to the negative connotations so many older people have for the word 'millennial' due to their notions about my generation. But anyway, it's the least clumsy language I know here, so I'm going to use it.

The Millennial Reign is a period of one thousand years described in Revelation as that where evil is restrained on the Earth but the New Heavens and New Earth have not yet arrived. During this period, Christ assumes direct rule over the Earth, administered by Christians (or at least, those among the saints who have endured very specific and difficult times). The question is whether this is a literal event, and if so, when it happens in relation to other literal events. These questions result in three main views:

1. Amillennialism is the view that the Millennial Reign is not a literal event. That isn't to say nothing it describes happens, but that it doesn't happen the way other views describe it. Essentially, this view holds that the Millennial Reign is an allegorical description of the period of time in which the church is on the earth, administering the rule of Christ within its local contexts. The idea is that evil is currently restrained, that the church has already been given authority to judge and practice administrative duties on the earth, and the Millennial Reign is therefore describing nothing more or less than the full duration (which clearly is not exactly one thousand years) of the time between Pentecost and the return of Christ.
2. Post-Millenialism is the view that the Millennial Reign is a literal period that must come to pass before Christ physically returns. The idea is that the church has been tasked with the responsibility of restraining evil and establishing the rule of Christ in a material way in the world today and, once the world is brought fully under the authority of Christ, He will return to claim the Kingdom that has been prepared for Him. This view includes a specific definition of the church itself, as the agency by which God has chosen to bring creation into final submission to Christ.
3. Pre-Millennialism is the view that Christ will physically return and, as part of His return, restrain evil and establish the Millennial Reign. The idea is that it is the work of Christ that establishes the Kingdom on the earth, and that none of this can happen until He has returned. As such, it happens after the other end times events, followed only by the establishment of the New Heaven and New Earth.

Views 1 & 2 lend themselves well to administrative views of the church, and are therefore common in traditions that view the church as having direct legal authority in the world. In these views, the church either can or must practice judicial authority in the world as above the authority of human governments, which can be seen in the way much of Europe still has religious structure embedded into its secular governments, whether through submission to the Vatican, clerical legal authority, or the direct merging of church and state. View 3 can be held by people with such a view of the church, but it doesn't lend itself naturally to that approach. The essential problem here is that, in a Pre-Mill view, the church is equipped to make disciples, but is not equipped to ultimately change the hearts or minds of anyone who does not become a disciple. That is, secular people can and should be expected to continue acting out of a secular mindset for as long as they remain separated from Christ, and therefore, the church does not have the position of authority over them necessary to establish the material rule of Christ in the current age beyond our own spheres of influence. This view tends to consider the responsibility of the Christian as one where we lend our influence where we can (and in countries where the population votes, that includes voting along Christian moral lines), but recognizes limits inherent to that, which is fine as it counters attempts at creating a hollow theocracy. This view also lends itself to the "hopes and prayers" approach to worldly problems, wherein Christians are encouraged to wash their hands of certain problems on the understanding that nothing will really change until Christ abolishes evil in the world; this result is, obviously, much less fruitful in its engagement with the world. Amillennialism can coexist with this worldview, as well, but it's a less natural fit.

As it stands now, this blog overall is written from a Pre-Millennial position. I believe that Christ will return and, only upon His return, establish direct and overt rule over the world. There are two basic types of Pre-Millennialism, though; those that teach that the Kingdom is not yet a reality at all (and therefore not a direct factor in our current decisions and views about the church) and those that teach that the Kingdom is already a reality waiting to be fully revealed (and therefore informative of our decisions and views about the church). The former tends to coincide with a Dispensational view of redemptive history, while the latter tends to coincide with a Covenant view of redemptive history. For reasons I will explain in the post about Dispensational and Covenant theologies, I'll explain my stance in more detail there; for now, it is enough to note that I hold the Kingdom as a present reality that informs our view of the church.

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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)

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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 Great Tribulation is a period of time in which, essentially, everything sucks and then people die. I would love to be more detailed than that, but scripture itself kind of isn't; while there are a lot of details people have claimed for this period, the Bible itself mostly just says what's cited above. The passage in Matthew is preceded by a description of a day when people will need to flee, and followed by talk of a time when people will falsely proclaim Christ's return, but the text makes clear that these are events that happen before and after the Tribulation (respectively). The passage in Revelation comes after the opening of six of the seven seals, but before the events generally associated with the Great Tribulation.

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:

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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)

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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)

The passage in 1 Thessalonians states clearly that the promise of meeting Christ in the air is part of Christ's return, and not a preceding event. The passage in Matthew begins by stating that He is describing a period after the Great Tribulation, and during that period the people of Christ are gathered together. Note also that Jesus said in verse 22 that the Great Tribulation was cut short for the sake of the elect, which somewhat demands that the elect are present and threatened by the Great Tribulation itself. The arguments for an earlier rapture tend to come partly from later in Matthew 24:

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)

Because pre- and mid-trib views tend to hold that the Great Tribulation is a defined seven-year period which can be recognized during its run, at least during its latter half, then the event described in the last two verses above can't happen after the Great Tribulation, otherwise we would know the day and the hour by simple math. That is, if the two men/two women descriptors are talking about the rapture, and the rapture is the same time as the return of Christ, and we can know that they will happen 3.5 years after the Antichrist declares himself God, then we can know when Christ will return by tracking 3.5 years after the Antichrist declares himself God. I find this argument unconvincing, for a number of reasons. First, I don't agree that the Great Tribulation is a trackable seven-year period, and I'm not even convinced the Antichrist is a singular being that will ever arise and do much of anything. But also, we have no indication that the two men/two women statements are describing the rapture. The assumption is that the one who vanishes was taken up to Heaven, but Christ is talking about a period of judgment, and I believe the much more natural reading of this passage is that the one who is taken is dead. All told, this reading does not seem justified to me, and certainly not justified enough to overpower the direct statement of Christ a few verses earlier that the angels will be sent to gather the faithful during, and not before, the return of Christ after the Great Tribulation has ended.

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.