An Eschatology Primer
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It is my job to teach the a-millenial position.
I’ll begin by showing my hand, and by saying that there are countless men who I deeply, deeply respect who hold to this position.
It is in fact the position that I have more or less held to for most of my adult Christian life,
And there is much to be gained for studying this position.
In many ways I see understanding this position to be the groundwork that is laid for grabbing hold of a more post-millennial view of history.
But this topic is hard.
It angers people,
it divides churches sometimes,
But here’s some brevity to take the pressure off.
28 “This is the end of the interpretation. As for me, Daniel, my thoughts terrified me greatly, and my face turned pale, but I kept the matter to myself.”
So let us have a spirit of charity that allows us to consider the possibility of a different view, in order to be refined by scripture.
So at risk of diving in too far without defining our terms, let’s read a text from Revelation so we can get on the same page.
Revelation is an apocalypse.
This is the only mention of the millennium.
This text is actually not the best text to use if we want to answer the question “what will happen in the future?”
Other parts of the bible are more clear on this.
But the question of the millennium is still an important one, because when we
1 Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven with the key to the abyss and a great chain in his hand. 2 He seized the dragon, that ancient serpent who is the Devil and Satan, and bound him for 1,000 years. 3 He threw him into the abyss, closed it, and put a seal on it so that he would no longer deceive the nations until the 1,000 years were completed. After that, he must be released for a short time. 4 Then I saw thrones, and people seated on them who were given authority to judge. I also saw the people who had been beheaded because of their testimony about Jesus and because of God’s word, who had not worshiped the beast or his image, and who had not accepted the mark on their foreheads or their hands. They came to life and reigned with the Messiah for 1,000 years. 5 The rest of the dead did not come to life until the 1,000 years were completed. This is the first resurrection. 6 Blessed and holy is the one who shares in the first resurrection! The second death has no power over them, but they will be priests of God and of the Messiah, and they will reign with Him for 1,000 years. 7 When the 1,000 years are completed, Satan will be released from his prison 8 and will go out to deceive the nations at the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them for battle. Their number is like the sand of the sea. 9 They came up over the surface of the earth and surrounded the encampment of the saints, the beloved city. Then fire came down from heaven and consumed them. 10 The Devil who deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur where the beast and the false prophet are, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.
Millennium?
Millennium?
Much of the discourse surrounding eschatology is a question of the millennial reign of Christ.
I believe this may be the wrong question.
The question that we need to ask and that we are actually interested in is the question of, “what is God doing and how?”
This is a worthwhile question, AND a question that scripture answers.
1 The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his slaves the things which must take place in a short time, and communicated it by sending it through his angel to his slave John,
Probably the first thing that needs to be said about what the amillenial view is is actually what it’s not.
The word itself communicates a sort of negation.
“A” meaning “Not”
In the amillenial view, the 1000 years spoken of in Revelation 20 is a figurative age, meaning not a literal 1000 years.
1000 years is a common way to describe a “large period of time”
We even do this in our language.
We use the number 1000 to describe a lot of something.
How many eggs did the dog eat in the kitchen?
Oh probably a thousand.
How many bees were in the house?
A thousand.
Or how about this one from scripture
5 You must not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the fathers’ sin, to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, 6 but showing faithful love to a thousand generations of those who love Me and keep My commands.
When you see a nice clean, large number like this in scripture,
it is very often conveying an idea, rather than a precise mathematical sum.
Especially when you find it in the book of revelation.
Apocalypse literature (ALTA VISTA ONLY)
Another key text for an amillennial, is arguably one of the most important texts in scripture to wrestle with if we want to understand the times we live in.
18 And Jesus approached and spoke to them, saying, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
Evangelical Christians have been so exercised with the eschatological or futuristic aspects of the Kingdom of God that it has often ceased to have immediate relevance to contemporary Christian life, except as a hope. Thus the very term, the “Kingdom of God,” to many Christians means first of all the millennial reign of Christ on earth. George Eldon Ladd, The Presence of the Future: The Eschatology of Biblical Realism, Revised Edition. (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1974), xi.
Much of the question at stake is “What aspects of the kingdom are present, and what are future?
And further, what should we expect?
Expectation is a tricky one though. There is a difference between expecting that God will do something over the course of history, and expecting God to do it right now for you.
American Christians struggle massively with main character syndrome.
We expect to see the fullness of the kingdom in our age.
But this seems to be a perennial problem. This is the question asked in Acts 1:6
“Lord are you restoring the kingdom to Israel now?”
What do you think of when you think of the kingdom?
Do you think of a future thing, or is it present?
Old Testament understanding of Kingdom:
Old Testament understanding of Kingdom:
18 Yahweh will reign as king forever and ever.”
15 I am Yahweh, your Holy One, the Creator of Israel, your King.
5 Then I said: Woe is me for I am ruined because I am a man of unclean lips and live among a people of unclean lips, and because my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of Hosts.
10 The Lord sat enthroned at the flood; the Lord sits enthroned, King forever.
2 For Yahweh Most High is awesome, a great king over all the earth.
1 Yahweh is king; he clothes himself with majesty. Yahweh clothes himself; he girds himself with might. Yes, the world is established so that it will not be moved. 2 Your throne is established from of old; you are from everlasting. 3 The rivers have lifted up, O Yahweh; the rivers have lifted up their rumbling; the rivers have lifted up their pounding. 4 Mightier than the rumblings of many waters, mightier than the mighty breakers of the sea, Yahweh on high is mighty. 5 Your testimonies are fully reliable. Holiness is fitting for your house, O Yahweh, forever.
Because the kingdom is God’s rule, the kingdom is actual now.
God’s rule was firmly realized on the cross!
Israel always wanted a man to sit on a throne,
and they got a bunch of imperfect men.
Now they have a perfect man sitting on a throne.
But his throne is in heaven.
For now...
15 The seventh angel blew his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven saying: The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Messiah, and He will reign forever and ever! 16 The 24 elders, who were seated before God on their thrones, fell facedown and worshiped God, 17 saying: We thank You, Lord God, the Almighty, who is and who was, because You have taken Your great power and have begun to reign.
“The kingdom of God has become the kingdom of men.”
Slides of the ages?
What’s next in history?
Two things that are simultaneously true:
The Kingdom is present and the kingdom is future.
The Kingdom is present.
The Kingdom is present.
20 Being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God will come, He answered them, “The kingdom of God is not coming with something observable; 21 no one will say, ‘Look here!’ or ‘There!’ For you see, the kingdom of God is among you.”
The Kingdom exists where Christ’s body exists.
And Christ’s body is the church.
That’s why we like to speak of churchs as embassies of the kingdom.
When you walk into church on Sunday you walk out of Arizona and into the kingdom of God.
The Kingdom is Future.
The Kingdom is Future.
We must be careful to not fall prey to what we might call an “over realized eschatology”.
1 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea no longer existed. 2 I also saw the Holy City, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared like a bride adorned for her husband. 3 Then I heard a loud voice from the throne: Look! God’s dwelling is with humanity, and He will live with them. They will be His people, and God Himself will be with them and be their God. 4 He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Death will no longer exist; grief, crying, and pain will exist no longer, because the previous things have passed away. 5 Then the One seated on the throne said, “Look! I am making everything new.” He also said, “Write, because these words are faithful and true.” 6 And He said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. I will give water as a gift to the thirsty from the spring of life. 7 The victor will inherit these things, and I will be his God, and he will be My son. 8 But the cowards, unbelievers, vile, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars —their share will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.”
Things that will not be realized until the return of Christ:
Grieving over the loss of loved ones, the loss of dreams, the loss of work, broken relationships...
Crying.
Pain..
And even death itself.
In 1 Corinthians Paul gives us a sort of timeline for end times.
22 For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive. 23 But each in his own order: Christ, the firstfruits; afterward, at His coming, those who belong to Christ. 24 Then comes the end, when He hands over the kingdom to God the Father, when He abolishes all rule and all authority and power. 25 For He must reign until He puts all His enemies under His feet. 26 The last enemy to be abolished is death. 27 For God has put everything under His feet. But when it says “everything” is put under Him, it is obvious that He who puts everything under Him is the exception. 28 And when everything is subject to Christ, then the Son Himself will also be subject to the One who subjected everything to Him, so that God may be all in all.
The other thing scripture teaches us about the future of the kingdom is that the nations themselves have submitted their rule to Christ’s rule.
This is an old testament hope that is realized after the resurrection.
18 “Knowing their works and their thoughts, I have come to gather all nations and languages; they will come and see My glory. 19 I will establish a sign among them, and I will send survivors from them to the nations—to Tarshish, Put, Lud (who are archers), Tubal, Javan, and the islands far away—who have not heard of My fame or seen My glory. And they will proclaim My glory among the nations. 20 They will bring all your brothers from all the nations as a gift to the Lord on horses and chariots, in litters, and on mules and camels, to My holy mountain Jerusalem,” says the Lord, “just as the Israelites bring an offering in a clean vessel to the house of the Lord. 21 I will also take some of them as priests and Levites,” says the Lord. 22 “For just as the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make, will endure before Me”— this is the Lord’s declaration— “so your offspring and your name will endure. 23 All mankind will come to worship Me from one New Moon to another and from one Sabbath to another,” says the Lord.
In the beginning of revelation we find the kings of the earth hiding from God.
15 Then the kings of the earth, the nobles, the military commanders, the rich, the powerful, and every slave and free person hid in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains.
But by the end we find them drawing near.
23 The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, because God’s glory illuminates it, and its lamp is the Lamb. 24 The nations will walk in its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it.
Dragnet synthesis:
Dragnet synthesis:
47 “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a large net thrown into the sea. It collected every kind of fish, 48 and when it was full, they dragged it ashore, sat down, and gathered the good fish into containers, but threw out the worthless ones. 49 So it will be at the end of the age. The angels will go out, separate the evil people from the righteous, 50 and throw them into the blazing furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
The Kingdom is present until it becomes the future.
It is not our job to sort the fish,
we are the fish.
When we baptize someone they become part of this group of people that are now a part of the kingdom.
I believe that the post-millenial vision is that at the end of the age we will find the the vast majority if not all living people on the earth will be baptized.
That the effect of the gospel of the kingdom would be so complete that there would not be a corner of the earth that has not heard the message and been shaped by the gospel.
I cannot argue against this and I won’t.
Amillenialism vs Postmillenialism?
Pros of Amil:
An acknowledgment of Christ’s inaugurated Lordship
A deep wrestling with suffering.
Cons:
A spiritualized Lordship that does not take hold of the creation and boils it down to a “personal saviour”
Pros of Postmil:
A robust covenant theology that understands AD 70 well.
A cohesive vision of the church in history.
Cons:
A triumphalism that does not account for suffering as God’s common mode of forming and sanctifiying his people.
Is it a valid view?
Of course it is.
But we must be wary of a an amillenialism that overspiritualizes everything and causes us to sit back and do nothing.
Here’s what we can agree on:
Satan has been bound.
Jesus is reigning,
The Church has a glorious victorious future.
Jesus’ resurrection secures for us a hope and a vision for the future that cannot fade.
Christ’s crucifixion grounds us in the reality of the type of living we can expect in this age.
1 Therefore, since Christ suffered in the flesh, equip yourselves also with the same resolve —because the one who suffered in the flesh has finished with sin —
He goes on one chapter later,
10 Now the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ Jesus, will personally restore, establish, strengthen, and support you after you have suffered a little.
7 But we have this treasure in earthenware jars, in order that the extraordinary degree of the power may be from God and not from us. 8 We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not despairing; 9 persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed; 10 always carrying around the death of Jesus in our body, in order that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body.
Are you crushed?
Are you perplexed?
Are you persecuted?
Are you abandoned?
Are you struck down?
Take heart.
14 We know that the One who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and present us with you. 15 Indeed, everything is for your benefit, so that grace, extended through more and more people, may cause thanksgiving to increase to God’s glory. 16 Therefore we do not give up. Even though our outer person is being destroyed, our inner person is being renewed day by day. 17 For our momentary light affliction is producing for us an absolutely incomparable eternal weight of glory.