When does eschatology begin?
Eschatology is a fancy little theological word that means the doctrine of the last things. So another way of putting the question to you is: “When do the last days begin?”
On the American theological landscape, there has been a fascination with the end times. One could trace the rise in interest back to the influence of the Scoffield Reference Bible. But in the past quarter century or more, a lucrative little cottage industry has fanned this flame with books like Hal Lindsey’s The Late Great Planet Earth or Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins’ Left Behind series.
In evangelicalism, options for your view on the end times abound. On the millennium, you can be premillennial, amillennial, or post-millennial. Even within our Bible Fellowship Church doctrinal statement, you have freedom on the position of the tribulation and the rapture. You can be pre-trib, post-trib, mid-trib, pre-wrath rapture, and maybe some yet-undiscovered combination. As one cartoonist portrayed it, Jesus himself might well look at the complex eschatological spectrum with all its charts and quip, “I’d come back just as soon as I can figure out when.”
Evangelicals have allegedly become experts on eschatology. Walk into any church and you will find some study being done on the book of Revelation or the end times. Oftentimes, the principles of interpretation are questionable and arise more from popular fiction and bad Bible study methods than from a serious grammatical-historical exegesis. For example, Revelation’s genre (type of literature) is “apocalyptic,” which means that John intended to use symbolism and imagery rather than tell us that locusts are helicopters and the holocausts must be nuclear war. In the popular realm, most studies of Revelation, Ezekiel, and Daniel have been driven by current geo-political happenings rather than serious attention to the text. Anyone remember the Soviet Union and Mikhail Gorbachev’s “mark of the beast”?
Many popular evangelical eschatologies are sorely lacking in exegesis. Most egregiously, very few populist approaches begin eschatology where the Scriptures begin. So we return to our question: “When do the last days begin?” The biblical answer is surprisingly and, given today’s climate, controversially but nonetheless resoundingly: the last days began already with the work of Jesus Christ in his death, resurrection, and ascension. If we are going to follow Scripture, we should not look to the future and say, “When do they start?” but instead, we should be looking to the past and saying, “How did they already start?” While you might need to recover from your shock, let it be stated plainly: the Bible clearly teaches that Jesus has already inaugurated the last days.
For discussing eschatology, we should start where Jesus’ message starts. Jesus begins his preaching with the proclamation that “the kingdom of God/heaven is at hand.” His driving out of demons shows us the kingdom of God has come (Matthew 12:28). The kingdom of God/heaven can be defined as the “reign of God.” This reign of God is the promise of the Old Testament in which God draws his rulership close and manifests it in the Son of David. This reign is promised to triumph over the whole world, defeat evil, and be an immanent administration of the eternal sovereign rule that God has always had. In this respect the “kingdom of God” is an eschatological event–a climax of the end time promises of God where God draws near.
The Old Testament saints believed that history moved in a straight line. It was not cyclical based on crop cycles, calendars, or repeated patterns like pagans and Greeks thought. While the calendar of the Old Testament repeated feasts and sacrifices, these were anticipatory of the once-for-all climax at the end of the age, and they expected history to have an end or goal. Specifically, “this present evil age” would give way to “the age to come.” Evil would be undone, and God’s kingdom reign would be present. But Jesus starts his ministry by telling us “the kingdom of God has come,” meaning that the age to come is dawning in history with his work. History is on the cusp of its intended climax. His work ushers this in, bringing it to fulfillment.
When later New Testament writers look at what has happened through Jesus, they show us that the promised last days have dawned. Peter tells us by quoting Joel 2 that in the events of Pentecost the last days have dawned (Acts 2:17). Hebrews begins by recounting how the climax of God’s revelation is in the Son: “in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son.” It is the New Covenant which is the covenant of the last days (Hebrews 8:8,10; 10:15-18). Christ’s sacrifice on the cross comes now “once at the consummation of the ages” (Hebrews 9:26). Paul records that Jesus was born of a woman “in the fullness of time,” language that denotes the eschatological climax of God’s historical program. 1 Corinthians 10:11 tells present-day believers that the Old Testament is for “our instruction on whom the end of the ages has come.”
The writers of the New Testament proclaimed that in the work of Jesus at his death, resurrection, and ascension to the Father’s right hand, Scripture has been fulfilled. The death and resurrection of Christ marked an eschatological event in advance of the ending of all things. So for the New Testament, it is not as if the kingdom was offered only to be postponed. A postponed kingdom or eschatology is false according to Scripture. Quite the opposite, the kingdom has begun. In fact, central to Old Testament eschatological predictions is the restoration of the throne of David from which the Messiah would reign. Acts 15:16-17 quotes Amos 9:11-12, where God says, “I will rebuild the tent of David that has fallen; I will rebuild its ruins, and I will restore it, that the remnant of mankind may seek the Lord and all the Gentiles who are called by my name.” With so many Gentiles seeking the Lord, and the apostles needing to defend Gentiles turning to God, the apostles look at the Old Testament and say, in effect, “this is what we were supposed to expect when God’s last days had began, and David’s house was rebuilt.” What has been said specifically of Paul’s preaching can summarize the content of all the apostles’ gospel preaching: “The whole content of this preaching can be summarized as the proclamation and explication of the eschatological time of salvation inaugurated with Christ’s advent, death, and resurrection.”[1]
The end of the age and last days have been inaugurated. They have started, but they are not yet finished. The mystery of the coming of the kingdom is that the present evil age still exists (Galatians 1:4). In fact, the two overlap and operate side by side. But the death of Christ was an advance inbreaking of the day of the Lord in which God judged the sins of his people in his Son. The resurrection of Jesus was his vindication. He has walked through the day of judgment in advance of the final day. His vindication fits him to be exalted in his human kingship over all things, from now until that final judgement he will execute (Acts 2:33-36; 17:31; Romans 1:3-4; 1 Corinthians 15:20-27; Ephesians 1:20-22; Hebrews 2:6-9). With his vindication, he begins the “new creation” expected in Isaiah’s last days (Galatians 6:15; 2 Corinthians 5:17). This is why Christ’s resurrection is a firstfruit (1 Corinthians 15:20). It is the first part of the harvest, in advance of the rest but guaranteeing the rest. The resurrection was expected in the last days, and with Jesus’ resurrection the last days have begun.
Still the issues of premillennial, post-millennial, and amillennial are important. To say that eschatology has been inaugurated and that the promised last days have begun with Jesus’ first advent is never to deny nor minimize his second advent. But despite all of that, it is even more important that we begin with eschatology where Scripture begins. The biblical eschatology is that the last days begins with the death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ. If we do not start our study where Scripture starts, all subsequent escapades in and explorations of the topic will ring hollow to the tune the Bible has set. That is sadly the state of far too many popular evangelical eschatologies.
Editor’s Note: This article was originally published in the Fall 2011 issue of BFC OneVoice. Used with permission.
[1] Herman Ridderbos, Paul: An Outline of His Theology (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1966) 44.
