Unraveling the End A Biblical Synthesis of Competing Views

1. Unraveling the EndA Biblical Synthesis of Competing Views

2. “Few doctrines unite and separate Christians as much as eschatology... ...One of the most divisive elements in recent Christian history.” Christianity Today February 6, 1987; p-1-I

3. 2 Guidelines • Sola Scriptura • In Love

4. Four Views(in order of prominence) #1 – Premillennial (Dispensational) #2 – Amillennial #3 – Postmillennial #4 – Preterist

5. Recap – 2 Questions • How much end-time prophecy was relevant to his original audience? • Premillennialists, “none of it” or “little of it” was. • Amillennialists, “some of it” was. • Postmillennialists, “most of it” was. • Preterists, “all of it” was relevant and fulfilled, right on time. • What do you say?

6. Recap – 2 Questions 2) Who’s right? • Premillennialists – the very-soon future fulfillment of all things. • Amillennialists – some past partial fulfillment but mostly future fulfillment whose time we cannot know. • Postmillennialists – a lot of past partial fulfillment but significant far-away future fulfillment. • Preterists – past fulfillment of all things. • What do you think?

8. Early Church Fathers(2nd-4th centuries) • At least four subscribed to a preterist (past fulfillment) understanding that . . . • At least some of Jesus’ “all these things” (Mt. 24:34) had indeed occurred within the timespan Jesus had specified. • i.e., “this generation.”

9. Athanasius – a preterist view “And Jerusalem is to stand till his coming, and thenceforth, prophet and vision cease in Israel…And this was why Jerusalem stood till thennamely that there they might be exercised in the types as a preparation for the reality…but from that time forth all prophecy is sealed and the city and temple taken, why are they so irreligious and so perverse as to see what has happened, and yet to deny Christ, Who has brought it all to pass? …What then has not come to pass, that the Christ must do? What is left unfulfilled, that the Jews should now disbelieve with impunity?” Athanasius, Incarnation of the Word, Section 39 Verse 3, Section 40 Verses 1-7 in The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, 57-58.

10. Athanasius – a preterist view “For no longer were these things to be done which belonged to Jerusalem which is beneath…the things pertaining to that time were fulfilled, and those which belonged to shadows had passed away.” Athanasius, The Festal Letters, Letter IV, in The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 4, 516-517.

11. Tertullian – a preterist view “For Daniel says, that ‘both the holy city and the holy place are exterminated together with the coming Leader, and that the pinnacle is destroyed unto ruin.’ And so the times of the coming Christ, the Leader, must be inquired into, which we shall trace in Daniel; and after computing them, shall prove Him to be come, even on the ground of the times prescribed, of the consequences which were ever announced as to follow His advent; in order that we may believe all to have been as well fulfilled as foreseen. In such wise, therefore, did Daniel predict concerning Him, as to show both when and in what time He was to set the nations free; and how, after the passion of Christ, that city had to be exterminated! . . . . And thus, in the day of their storming, the Jews fulfilled the lxx hebdomads predicted in Daniel.” Tertullian, An Answer to the Jews, in The Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 3, 158, 160.

13. Preterist Views of Four Early Church Fathers – Yet • No creed or confession of the undivided or divided Church • teaches or even recognizes that any kind of judgment or coming • or anything of eschatological significance • occurred in association with the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70.

14. “…the destruction of Jerusalem [A.D. 70]…certainly spelled the end of a crucial redemptive-historical epoch. It must be viewed as the end of some age. It also represents a significant visitation of the Lord in judgment and a vitally important ‘day of the Lord.’ Whether this was the only day of the Lord about which Scripture speaks remains a major point of controversy among preterists.” R.C. Sproul, The Last Days According to Jesus, 203.

15. Futurist Views of Early Church Fathers • Justin Martyr • Papias • Tertullian? • Irenaeus • Hippolytus • Methodus • Commodianus • Lactantius.

16. Question: Who’s right? • Premillers? • Amillers? • Postmillers? • Preterists?

17. Wondering? What’s my view? • Not any one of the four. • All four. • Or rather, parts of all four. • Each has captured a portion of the truth. • But each has also subscribed to a significant amount of error. • By adding things that are not from the Bible but from the traditions of men.

18. Begin the Unraveling Process

19. Dissertation Topic “An Evaluation and Synthesis of the Four Major Evangelical Views of the Return of Christ.”

20. My Dissertation Premise – Fourfold: • God is not the author of our confusion in eschatology. We are. • Each of the four views centers on the return of Christ as the pivotal and controlling end-time event. • Each view has principal strengths and weaknesses can be identified through a scripturally disciplined approach grounded upon what the text actually says and does not say.

21. My Four Dissertation Premises: 4. The solution would be a solution ofsynthesis—discarding the weakness, keeping the strengths, and synthesizing the strengths into one meaningful, coherent, and consistent view that is more Christ-honoring, Scripture- authenticating, and faith-validating than any one view in and of itself.

23. Literature Review “there has been little attempt tosynthesize the whole field of prophecy . . . and there is a great need for a synthetic study and presentation of Biblical prophecy.” J. Barton Payne, Encyclopedia of Biblical Prophecy, vi. From J. Dwight Pentecost, Things to Come, viii.

24. Literature Review “The history of theology is all too often a long exhibition of a desire to win. But we should understand that what we are working for in the midst of our difference is a solution—a solution that will give God the glory, that will be true to the Bible, but will exhibit the love of God simultaneously with his holiness.” Frances A. Schaeffer, The Great Evangelical Disaster, 176-177.

25. Literature Review “the doctrine of the last things . . . [as] one of the leastdeveloped doctrines.” “It may be . . . we have now reached that point in the history of dogma in which the doctrine of the last things will receive greater attention and be brought to further development. Louis Berkhof, The History of Christian Doctrines, 267.

26. Literature Review “the one remaining undeveloped topic of theology.” Millard J. Erickson, A Basic Guide to Eschatology, 11.

27. Literature Review “the search for truth can never be limited to the categories of a single modern school of thought.” John Warwick Montgomery, The Suicide of Christian Theology, 177.

28. Literature Review “the easiest approach . . . is to follow one’s own particular tradition as the true view and ignore all others, but intelligent interpreters must familiarize themselves with the variousmethods of interpretation that they may criticize their own views.” George Eldon Ladd, A Theology of the New Testament, 670.

29. Literature Review “some combination of the two (preterist-futurist views)” offers “the most promising solution to the exegetical difficulties of this passage.” David L. Turner, “The Structure and Sequence of Matthew 24:1-41: Interaction with Evangelical Treatments,” Grace Theological Journal 10.1 (1989): 3, 26.

30. Literature Review “Both the futurist and preterist views have their strengths and weaknesses. Instead of choosing only one or the other, a ‘both/and’ approach that applies the strengths of each is a better option. . . . Combining the preterist and futurist views allows us to understand both that the message of Revelation spoke directly to John’s own age and that it represents the consummation of redemptive history. . . .”

31. Literature Review “The preterist position by itself fails to understand that Revelation confronts the modern reader with promises, challenges, and choices that are similar, if not identical to those faced by the book’s original readers. The futurist position by itself is prone to see Revelation as a crystal ball with a literal timetable of events that will happen in the future.” David S. Dockery, “Is Revelation Prophecy or History?” Christianity Today, 25 October 1999, 86.

32. Literature Review “We would be mistaken if we merely weighed the evidence, chose one, and ignored the other two. The Spirit has something important to tell us in each of the three traditional views of the millennium.” Stanley J. Grenz, “The 1,000-year Question: Timeless truths behind the debates over Christ’s return,” Christianity Today, 8 March 1993, 35.

34. The Great End-time Fiasco vs. Divine Perfection

35. The ESSENCE of the Great End-time Fiasco Part 1 – Things that were supposed to happen didn’t happen . . . as NT expectations proved false. Part 2 – So the Church invented “delay theory”—in direct contradiction of Scripture.

36. C.S. Lewis, essay, “The World’s Last Night” (1960) “‘Say what you like,’ we shall be told [by the skeptic], ‘the apocalyptic beliefs of the first Christians have been proved to be false. It is clear from the New Testament that they all expected the Second Coming in their own lifetime. And, worse still, they had a reason, and one which you will find very embarrassing. Their Master had told them so. He shared, and indeed created, their delusion. He said in so many words, ‘thisgeneration shall not pass till all these things be done.’ And He was wrong. He clearly knew no more about the end of the world than anyone else.’

37. C.S. Lewis, essay, “The World’s Last Night” (1960) “It is certainly the most embarrassing verse in the Bible. Yet how teasing, also, that within fourteen words of it should come the statement ‘but of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father.’ The one exhibition of error and the one confession of ignorance grow side by side.”

38. Delay Theory Dictionary of Biblical Prophecy and End Times, 114 “Delay of the Parousia The term Parousia refers to the second coming of Christ. The delay of the Parousia refers to the assumption by some New Testament scholars that the first generation of Christians (A.D. 30-70) believed that Christ would return before their deaths. When that didn’t happen (i.e., when the Parousia was delayed), the early believers were supposedly thrown into a crisis of faith.”

39. Delay Theory Dictionary of Biblical Prophecy and End Times, 410, 115 “The delay reveals God’s patience and desire that many will come to repentance and faith….” “Jesus provides stronghints that there could indeed be a delay between some of the immediate, partial fulfillment of his prophecies and the ultimate final fulfillment of his prophecies, particularly in regard to the Parousia.”

40. Delay Theory Dictionary of Biblical Prophecy and End Times, 115 “Finally, the early church developed the already – not yet eschatological perspective in order to deal with the delay of the Parousia . . . . [between] Christ’s first coming . . . . [and] his second coming, however short or long a time that entailed.”

41. Delay Theory Three Huge Biblical Problems • Amos 3:7 • Hab. 2:3; Ezek. 12:21-28; Heb. 10:37 • The wicked/evil servant – Matt. 24:42-51 (also see: Matt. 18:32; 25:26; Luke 19:22)

42. The Great End-time Fiasco vs. Divine Perfection

43. Divine PerfectionProposition #1 • The God of the Bible is the God of order and design. Everything He created He did so with a plan, purpose, timeframe, and timely precision. • The stamp or fingerprint of divinity.

45. Divine PerfectionProposition #1 “I cannot believe that God plays dice with the cosmos.” Albert Einstein on quantum mechanics, published in the London Observer, April 5, 1964; also quoted as “God does not play dice with the world.” in Einstein: The Life and Times, Ronald W. Clark, 19.

46. Divine PerfectionProposition #1 “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge.” (Psalm 19:1)

48. Divine PerfectionProposition #1 Macro Evidence • 1990, the Hubble telescope. • We live on a very privileged planet. • 122 finely tuned, inter-dependent conditions or constants have been identified. • the “Goldilocks” story. • “one chance in 10 to the 138th.”

49. Divine PerfectionProposition #1 “conspiracy . . . the product of a mind . . . an intelligent being . . . a supremely good and orderly creator . . . for our sake . . . . the universe is ordered in an intelligent way.” Illustra Media, The Privileged Planet, DVD.

50. Divine PerfectionProposition #1 Micro Evidence • Electron microscope (invented in 1930) • In 1996, Michael Behe, Ph.D. • The publication of his best-selling book, Darwin’s Black Box. • “irreducible complexity.”