Tag: Eschatology

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Anonymous asks: http://www.themysteryunlocked.com/ takea look at this book apperently the rapture is going to happen on july 24th 2012! do you think his arguements are weak for his jutifcation

Wow, less than a month away!  Bring it on.  Maranatha!

But, what do I think of the author’s arguments?  He is Mark Alexander who describes the foundation of his authorship and the book thus (his emphasis):

This servant of God, has no background of being through a Seminary School/College, has no large Ministry and confesses that he is insignificant and unworthy of such a Great Revelation in more than many ways and that would be the challenge of God to the readers, so that in the end of it, only He the Great God would get all the Glory who is only worthy of all Glory. All the Scripture verses and knowledge and wisdom in this Book, has come, purely in and through the Holy Spirit’s revelation and guidance to this untaught servant, (an agent and go between) to bring this Hidden Mystery to God’s People in God’s time, in these Last Days and as many as have been appointed to eternal life will believe.

So, unless I’m willing to accept that Mark Alexander is an authoritative purveyor of a previously unknown Revelation from God, the book would be quite useless.  The humility is false, he is claiming a power that is rightfully Christ’s alone.

Any argument based on this premise will be weak.  I have no inclination to investigate further 🙂

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Anonymous asks:

Do you agree with the image at the link below regarding after death happenings? http://www.bible.ca/hades-lk-16.gif
[Image reproduced here]

Thanks for the question.  The answer is “mostly.”  It is a diagram that refers to the “intermediate state” – that state of existence between a person’s physical death and the return of Christ and the final judgement.  I’ve answered a question on this topic previously.

The diagram draws heavily on the Luke 16 parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus which portrays an existence in which there is a “great gulf” between the (righteous) Lazarus and Abraham and the (unrighteous) Rich Man.  I assume the word “paradise” is taken from Christ’s proclamation on the cross to the one crucified next to him.  “Tartarus” is a word from Greek Legend to do with the lowest reaches of the heavens and earth; it is not a biblical word and it is careless to use it.

Within the domain of “all humans” (circle on the left) you have a division between the “Power of Darkness” and the “Kingdom of Christ.”  There is tartaric doom for those who are in the power of darkness and the “unfaithful” in the kingdom of Christ.  I’m not sure what the originator is getting at here but this framework doesn’t sit well with me.  The simple demarcator is Christ as Messiah and those that are “in Christ” by covenant of grace through faith and those who are not.  I’m not too unhappy with “infants” being classified as those childlike innocents to which the Kingdom of God belongs but in my mind individualistic soteriological analysis such as this is unhelpful.  The people of God are in Christ in paradise when they die, that is all that needs be said.

I have no problem with a general resurrection occurring before a final judgement at the end.  I do have a difficulty with what follows that event.  “Heaven” is a nebulous term.  The way we use the word (as in “go to heaven when we die”) is actually more of a referent to the sense of paradise in the intermediate state.  The resurrection glory that follows the general resurrection is not so much heavenly but immortal, glorified, new heavens and new earth including some sense of imperishable physicality.  Consider 1 Cor 15.

And I am of the opinion that the Lake of Fire for those who are not in Christ is not a gateway to eternal torment but the means of the true eternal punishment – eradication of existence itself.  In this sense, unless I can be convinced otherwise, I am something of an annihilationist.

Hope that helps.

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Anonymous asks: Can you give us your thoughts and reflection upon Harold Camping’s prophecies regarding the nearing rapture on May 21? Is there anything I need to do in preparation? Do we assume that anyone who is still around after Sunday isn’t a Christian?

Anonymous asks: Further to my earlier anonymous question: http://www.familyradio.com/graphical/literature/judgment/judgment.html

To which I would add this from googling around: http://www.ebiblefellowship.com/outreach/tracts/may21/

The whole thing is about a supposed understanding of the Bible that indicates that Judgement Day occur on May 21, 2011 (two days away!) and that the world will end five months later on October 21, 2011.

As a twitter friend of mine wrote, “Was Matthew 24:36 removed from the bible or something?”  Matthew 24:36 reads “But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.”  Proponents get around it by saying that new understanding has rendered this text superfluous.  It’s a ridiculous argument really.  The simple fact that there is a prediction is evidence enough that the whole thing is wrong.

There is further irony in that, having ignored Matthew 24:36, it seems that the whole prediction rests upon a misapplication of the very next verse: Matthew 24:37 – “As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.”  Which leads to a less-than-tenuous hermeneutic which applies details of the accounts of Noah in Genesis, improbably located in history, via some questionable numerological manipulations, to the span of history itself.  The reason why May 21, 2011 is important, apparently, is because it’s 7000 years after the beginning of the flood.

I’ll end with a quote which I think is from Mark Driscoll: “On May 20th I’m planting a tree, on May 22nd I’m laughing at this false prophet.”

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A follow-up from a previous Q&A post.

Casper comments:

So those celebrating at Nuremburg when a guilty verdict was passed with the knowledge that the convicted was to be hanged were wrong?
And since we have the example of a separate theatre of war at the same time where no-one got justice and a few trials only took out low level war criminals and those who perpetrated massive crimes weren’t held to account (by the same government celebrating Osama’s death). Japan has a huge issue in the region still because they did not repent for their actions and were never punished.

There is good reason for the catharsis.

I think you should have done a better job between defining between Gospel and Governance and at the end of the day the Gospel is a path of violence for Christ and all who follow him so that statement doesn’t really stick well since Countries and the Church are separate institutions.

Hi Casper,

I think the response I’m championing is a mixture of gladness and sadness:  Gladness that justice can be done, some vindication is evident – a good foreshadowing of the eventual judgement on Christ’s return.  Sadness, because the judgement is not here in full and vindication can never be fully achieved in human hands, because the judgement itself is indicative of a broken world, and because I am not without sin myself.

Please note I am not advocating that the action against Osama was wrong.  And I prefer the transparent justice of Nuremburg with the lesser forms elsewhere.  My concern is about the triumphalism.

In terms of Gospel/Governance, the connection I’m grasping is eschatological:    The non-violence of Christ is a demonstration of the post-judgement Kingdom of God made real and present by Christ through the violence of the cross and the vindication of the resurrection.  It’s application is found in forgiveness, and being a peace-maker insomuch as it depends on you etc.  Romans 13 connects because the government authority is described as the agent of God and therefore prefigures the ultimate judgement of God by which the Kingdom of God is made manifest.  It’s application is in the right punishment of the evildoers in our midst.  The tension between these applications is exactly the now-and-not-yet tension that we have because we belong to the Kingdom of God inaugurated by Christ but not yet culminated at the judging of all things. The Kingdom of peace has begun, the need for punishment remains until the day when all things are made right.

So the right response when we see punishment, such as what OBL has received, is eschatological – “All things will be judged, including me, so thanks be to God for his grace that in Christ I, even I, may pass through that terrible day.”  The right response is humility, and further dependence on Christ, not triumph.

W.

Posted on Posted in Book Reviews, Theological Thoughts No Comments

I used to think it was my own little heresy – that the gospel was all about the Lordship of Christ and the fulfillment of his Kingdom here on earth when he returns, more than any possibility of being raptured into an ethereal eternity.  My “heresy” has found a harbour.  Tom Wright’s Surprised by Hope unpacks an eschatology that brings forth the foundation of the biblical narrative.  Not only is it hermeneutical framework changer (or strengthener) but completes the circle by dealing with the putting of gospel into practice.

The book is quite simple in essence.  Wright seeks to answer two questions: “First, what is the ultimate Christian hope?  Second, what hope is there for change, rescue, transformation, new possibilities within the world in the present?” (Page 5).  And he insists that these questions be asked together, for the Christian hope is not about escaping an evil creation, but about “God’s new creation.. that has already come to life in Jesus of Nazareth.” (Page 5)

“I find that to many – not least many Christians – all this comes as a surprise: both that the Christian hope is surprisingly different from what they had assumed, and that this same hope offers a coherent and energizing basis for work in today’s world’ (Page 5)

Wright then proceeds, to unpack these two issues – the Christian hope, and it’s application.

To the first issue he brings his skill as New Testament scholar and general theologian to bear in a knowledgeable and astute way.  His touchstone is the resurrrection and ascension of Jesus, a topic that is poorly handled (if considered at all) in many of the systematic theologies I’ve read.  The historicity of Christ’s resurrection is a deliberately aberrational impact of God’s purposes into the world.  People simply do not rise from the dead, so that fact this this man has inaugurates something profound.  First, it places Jesus higher than all – as the one in whom the Kingdom of God is inaugurated he is Lord of all.  And, secondly, upon his return, as the early Christians cry Maranatha!…

“They believed that God was going to do for the whole cosmos what he had done for Jesus at Easter.” (Page 104)

Before he gets to the practical implications Wright unpacks the theological ones.  He sets this expression of the gospel against insidious platonism and an assumed dualism that is prevalent in liturgical and spiritual language.  I particularly enjoyed how he pulls apart some of our hymnody.

“While we’re on Christian carols, consider ‘Away in a manger’, which prays, ‘and fit us for heaven, to live with thee there.’  No resurrection; no new creation; no marriage of heaven and earth.  And when we find in the hymn book the blatant romantic nature-religion and universalims of Paul Gerhardt…

But when life’s day is over
Shall death’s fair night discover

Death in the New Testament is never a ‘fair night’.  It is an enemy, conquered by Jesus but still awaiting its final defeat.”

There are theological corollaries to his framework, and he also unpacks these.  It could be here that some controversy might lie for some, although it needn’t for I think he draws a line between what is necessary and what is speculative.

Some examples of his thinking includes the necessity of an intermediate state of paradise ahead of the coming of Christ – which means the many rooms prepared by Jesus for his disciples (John 14) are temporary.  He also looks at judgement and justification.  His view of hell, rather nicely, is not annihilationist, but somewhat Narnian, where hell is for “beings that once were human but now are not, creatures that have ceased to bear the divine image at all.” (Page 195)

One aspect I need to put some more thought into is the notion that the creation of Genesis, while definitely good, is not necessary complete.   Rather, creation itself is eschatological (crf. Romans 8), designed as a vessel to receive the fullness of God himself so that the glory of the Lord covers the earth as the waters cover the sea.

“It looks as though God intends to flood the universe with himself; as though the universe, the entire cosmos, was designed as a receptacle for his love.  We might even suggest, as part of a Christian aesthetic, that the world is beautiful, not just because it hauntingly reminds us of its creator, but because it is pointing forwards: it is designed to be filled, flooded, drenched in God; as a chalice is beautiful not least because of what we know it is designed to contain…

The world is created good but incomplete.  One day, when all forces of rebellion have been defeated, and the creation responds freely and gladly to the love of its creator, God will fill it with himself, so that it will both remain an independent being, other than God, and also will be flooded with God’s own life.” (Pages 113-114)

The key value of this book however lies in Wright’s attempt to complete the circle from theology to practicality – the intertwining of gospel with mission.  1 Corinthians 15 is a key passage as Wright engages with Paul’s vision of our future in the resurrection and reflects on Paul’s application of this hope: “Therefore, my beloved ones, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, because you know that in the Lord your labour is not in vain.”

“The point of the resurrection, as Paul has been arguing throughout the letter, is that the present bodily life is not valueless just because it will die.  God will raise it to new life.  What you do with your body in the present matters, because God has a great future in store for it… What you do in the present – by painting, preaching, singing, sewing, praying, teaching, building hospitals, digging wells, campaigning for justice, writing poems, caring for the needy, loving your neighbour as yourself – all these things will last into God’s future.  They are not simply ways of making the present life a little less beastly, a little more bearable, until the day when we live it behind altogether… They are part of what we may call building for God’s kingdom.” (Page 205)

The basic sense is knowing the Kingdom of God in part here and now what we will know in fullness when Jesus returns.  It’s a life that prays “Your kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven” and builds for that kingdom.  Wright unpacks kingdom tasks around the categories of working for justice, beauty and evangelism (chapter 13).

When talking about mission it is hard to get the balance right between our obligation and the sovereign work of God.  I like Wrights’ God builds the kingdom, we build for the kingdom phrasing.  But I’m not sure whether describing our missions as “seeking… to implement the achievement of Jesus and his resurrection” (Page 245) is helpful.  Jesus “achieves” and we “implement” – I’m not sure if this hits the balance.  Perhaps it’s my cynicism – many of the examples Wright gives of mission in action seem simply too bureaucratic.  Part of me is discontent with welfare programs or even “Truth and Reconciliation Commissions” as an outworking of the gospel.  They seem doable without Jesus and thus devoid of power.  I want to see miracles as the Kingdom of God comes near to those who are bound by sin and the world, just as it did for Jesus.  Perhaps this is eschatological angst on my part.

I did appreciate Wright’s last two chapters, however, where he goes where my heart always goes – the reshaping of the church for mission.  The message for a church which has lost its hope is “It’s time to wake up!… Come alive to the real world, the world where Jesus is Lord, the world into which your baptism brings you, the world you claim to belong to when you say in the creed that Jesus is Lord and that God raised him from the dead.” (Page 265)  Such a message can and must reinvigorate our worship, our prayer, our attitude towards life.

In all this Wright has let down a bucket into the depths of the gospel water from which I have not drunk for a long time.  The bucket is imperfect for sure.  But the water is oh so sweet.

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