Transcript Unraveling the End A Biblical Synthesis of Competing Views

Unraveling the End
A Biblical Synthesis of Competing Views
“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
2 Guidelines
1)
Sola Scriptura
2)
In Love
Four Views
(in order of prominence)
#1 – Premillennial (Dispensational)
#2 – Amillennial
#3 – Postmillennial
#4 – Preterist
Recap – 2 Questions
1) 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?
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?
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
time span Jesus had specified.
• i.e., “this generation.”
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.
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.
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.
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.
“…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.
Futurist Views
of Early Church Fathers
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Justin Martyr
Papias
Tertullian?
Irenaeus
Hippolytus
Methodus
Commodianus
Lactantius.
Question:
Who’s right?
• Premillers?
• Amillers?
• Postmillers?
• Preterists?
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.
Begin
the Unraveling
Process
Dissertation Topic
“An Evaluation and Synthesis
of the Four Major Evangelical Views
of the Return of Christ.”
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.
My Four Dissertation Premises:
4.
The solution would be a solution of
synthesis—discarding the weakness,
keeping the strengths, and synthesizing
the strengths into one meaningful,
coherent, and consistent view that is
more Christ-honoring, Scriptureauthenticating, and faith-validating than
any one view in and of itself.
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.
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.
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.
Literature Review
“the one remaining undeveloped topic of
theology.”
Millard J. Erickson,
A Basic Guide to Eschatology, 11.
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.
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 various methods of interpretation
that they may criticize their own views.”
George Eldon Ladd,
A Theology of the New Testament, 670.
Literature Review
“some combination of the two (preteristfuturist 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.
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. . . .”
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.
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.
The Great
End-time Fiasco
vs.
Divine Perfection
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.
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, ‘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.’
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.”
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. 3070) 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.”
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 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.”
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.”
Delay Theory
Three Huge Biblical Problems
1. Amos 3:7
2. Hab. 2:3; Ezek. 12:21-28; Heb. 10:37
3. The wicked/evil servant – Matt. 24:42-51
(also see: Matt. 18:32; 25:26; Luke 19:22)
The Great
End-time Fiasco
vs.
Divine Perfection
Divine Perfection
Proposition #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.
Divine Perfection
Proposition #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.
Divine Perfection
Proposition #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)
Divine Perfection
Proposition #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.”
Divine Perfection
Proposition #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.
Divine Perfection
Proposition #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.”
“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.
Re: “irreducible complexity”
“flows naturally from the data itself—not
from sacred books or sectarian beliefs.”
[
Michael Behe,
Darwin’s Black Box, 193.
“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,
Darwin’s Black Box, 232, 193.
Divine Perfection
Proposition #1
So Who’s 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. 1:1; also see Isa. 40:26-28).
Divine Perfection
Proposition #1
So Who’s 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. 14:1; Isa. 53:1)
Divine Perfection
Proposition #1
So Who’s the Fool?
“For since the creation of the world God’s
invisible qualities—his eternal powers and
divine nature—have been clearly seen,
being understood from what has been
made, so that men [and women] are
without excuse.” (Rom. 1:20)
Divine Perfection
Proposition #1
• He created it all within a fixed and
specified timeframe of “six days”
(Gen. 1:1-2:3)
• 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.
Divine Perfection
Proposition #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.
Divine Perfection
Proposition #2
• Progressively completed it with timely and
mathematical precision.
• “when the time had fully come . . . to
redeem those under the law” (Gal. 4:4)
• “at just the right time” (Rom. 5:6)
• “who gave himself as a ransom for all men
– the testimony given in its proper time” (1
Tim. 2:6).
Divine Perfection
Proposition #2
How we humans can know Who the one
true God is:
Isaiah. 44:6-8
Also see
Isaiah 41:21-24; 42:8-9;
45:20-22; 46:9-11; 48:3-6
Divine Perfection
Proposition #2
• The God of the Bible foretold—many times
and in many ways—what 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.
Divine Perfection
Proposition #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.”
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
2:3)
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 – God’s divinely appointed
timeline.
Unraveling the End
A Biblical Synthesis of Competing Views