Unraveling the End A Biblical Synthesis of Competing Views

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Unraveling the EndA Biblical Synthesis of
Competing Views
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• 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

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2 Guidelines

• Sola Scriptura
• In Love

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Four Views(in order of prominence)

• 1 Premillennial (Dispensational)
• 2 Amillennial
• 3 Postmillennial
• 4 Preterist

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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?

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Recap 2 Questions

• 2) Whos 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?

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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.
  2434) had indeed occurred within the time span
  Jesus had specified.
• i.e., this generation.

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Athanasius a preterist view

• And Jerusalem is to stand till his coming, and
  thenceforth, prophet and vision cease in
  IsraelAnd this was why Jerusalem stood till
  then?namely that there they might be exercised in
  the types as a preparation for the realitybut
  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.

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Athanasius a preterist view

• For no longer were these things to be done
  which belonged to Jerusalem which is beneaththe
  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.

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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.

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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.

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• the destruction of Jerusalem A.D.
  70certainly 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.

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Futurist Views of Early Church Fathers

• Justin Martyr
• Papias
• Tertullian?
• Irenaeus
• Hippolytus
• Methodus
• Commodianus
• Lactantius.

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Question

• Whos right?
• Premillers?
• Amillers?
• Postmillers?
• Preterists?

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Wondering?

• Whats 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.

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• Begin
• the Unraveling
• Process

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Dissertation Topic

• An Evaluation and Synthesis
• of the Four Major Evangelical Views
• of the Return of Christ.

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My Dissertation Premise Fourfold

1. God is not the author of our confusion in
   eschatology. We are.
2. Each of the four views centers on the return of
   Christ as the pivotal and controlling end-time
   event.
3. 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.

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My Four Dissertation Premises

• 4. The solution would be a solution of
  synthesisdiscarding 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.

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Literature Review

• there has been little attempt to synthesize 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.

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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 solutiona 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.

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Literature Review

• the doctrine of the last things . . . as one
  of the least developed 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.

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Literature Review

• the one remaining undeveloped topic of
  theology.
• Millard J. Erickson,
• A Basic Guide to Eschatology, 11.

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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.

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Literature Review

• the easiest approach . . . is to follow ones
  own particular tradition as the true view and
  ignore all others, but intelligent interpreters
  must familiarize themselves with the various
  methods of interpretation that they may criticize
  their own views.
• George Eldon Ladd,
• A Theology of the New Testament, 670.

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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
  241-41 Interaction with Evangelical
  Treatments,
• Grace Theological Journal 10.1 (1989) 3, 26.

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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 Johns own age and
  that it represents the consummation of redemptive
  history. . . .

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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 books 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.

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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 Christs return,
  Christianity Today, 8 March 1993, 35.

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

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The ESSENCE of the Great End-time Fiasco

• Part 1 Things that were supposed to
  happen didnt happen . . .
• as NT expectations proved false.
• Part 2 So the Church invented delay
  theoryin direct contradiction of
  Scripture.

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C.S. Lewis, essay, The Worlds 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, this generation 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.

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C.S. Lewis, essay, The Worlds 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.

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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 didnt happen (i.e., when the
  Parousia was delayed), the early believers were
  supposedly thrown into a crisis of faith.

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Delay Theory

• Dictionary of Biblical Prophecy and End Times,
  410, 115
• The delay reveals Gods patience and desire
  that many will come to repentance and faith.
• Jesus provides strong hints 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.

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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 Christs first coming . . . . and his
  second coming, however short or long a time that
  entailed.

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Delay Theory

• Three Huge Biblical Problems
• Amos 37
• Hab. 23 Ezek. 1221-28 Heb. 1037
• The wicked/evil servant Matt. 2442-51
• (also see Matt. 1832 2526 Luke 1922)

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

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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.

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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.

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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 191)

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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.

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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.

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Divine PerfectionProposition 1

• Micro Evidence
• Electron microscope (invented in 1930)
• In 1996, Michael Behe, Ph.D.
• The publication of his best-selling book,
  Darwins Black Box.
• irreducible complexity.

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• If it could be demonstrated that any complex
  organ existed which could not possibly have been
  formed by numerous successive, slight
  modifications, my theory would absolutely break
  down.
• Charles Darwin, Origin of Species, 154.
• Behe then proceeded to do just that.

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• Re irreducible complexity
• flows naturally from the data itselfnot from
  sacred books or sectarian beliefs.
• Michael Behe,
• Darwins Black Box, 193.

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• the result is so unambiguous and so significant
  that it must be ranked as one of the greatest
  achievements in the history of science.
• intelligent design
• Michael Behe,
• Darwins Black Box, 232, 193.

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Divine PerfectionProposition 1

• So Whos the Fool?
• Nothing times nobody plus random change over
  billions of years equals everything in
  perfection.
• In the beginning God created the heavens and the
  earth. (Gen. 11 also see Isa. 4026-28).

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Divine PerfectionProposition 1

• So Whos the Fool?
• Like the old saw says
• Two men looked through prison bars
• One saw mud the other saw stars.
• The fool says in his heart,
• There is no God
• (Psa. 141 Isa. 531)

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Divine PerfectionProposition 1

• So Whos the Fool?
• For since the creation of the world Gods
  invisible qualitieshis eternal powers and divine
  naturehave been clearly seen, being understood
  from what has been made, so that men and women
  are without excuse. (Rom. 120)

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Divine PerfectionProposition 1

• He created it all within a fixed and specified
  timeframe of six days
• (Gen. 11-23)
• An ever increasing irony keeps manifesting
  itself.
• The more amazing and baffling its innermost
  workings appear.
• The New Apologetic.
• Another venue for us to explore.

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Divine PerfectionProposition 2

• The same God of perfection in all his physical
  creation is the God of perfection in his plan of
  redemption.
• He created it with order and design, and a plan,
  purpose, and a fixed and specified timeframe.

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Divine PerfectionProposition 2

• Progressively completed it with timely and
  mathematical precision.
• when the time had fully come . . . to redeem
  those under the law (Gal. 44)
• at just the right time (Rom. 56)
• who gave himself as a ransom for all men the
  testimony given in its proper time (1 Tim. 26).
  

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Divine PerfectionProposition 2

• How we humans can know Who the one true God is
  
• Isaiah. 446-8
• Also see
• Isaiah 4121-24 428-9
• 4520-22 469-11 483-6

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Divine PerfectionProposition 2

• The God of the Bible foretoldmany times and in
  many wayswhat was going to happen in the future.
  
• And it all happened.
• No other god, faith, religion, or ideology in the
  world can claim this.
• Nor has anything to compare with the validating
  evidence of fulfilled prophecy.

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Divine PerfectionProposition 2

• Everything else the God of the Bible promised and
  prophesied via his prophets regarding his plan of
  redemption
• (e.g., saving us human beings from sin and
  restoring our fellowship with Him)
• Also happened at just the right time . . . in
  its proper time.

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Divine Perfection

• The Appointed Time of the End
• For the revelation awaits an appointed time it
  speaks of the end and will not prove false.
  Though it linger, wait for it
• it will certainly come and will not delay.
  (Habakkuk 23)

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Next Week

• The historical setting and defining
  characteristic of the time of the end.
• Two big objections.
• A dozen or more scriptural confirmations.
• Following week Gods divinely appointed
  timeline.

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Unraveling the EndA Biblical Synthesis of
Competing Views