Chapter 07, Eschatology, The World to Come, Chiliastic Views

The World to Come

            When we step back into eschatology proper, we must admit that, as the final kingdom of God in which we will participate fully is entirely beyond our comprehension, we can only sketch out in general terms what the world to come will be like, and we take our cue for our thinking from the person of Christ.

            The first thing that we need to emphasize again is that, whatever form the eschatological kingdom takes, it will be an embodied kingdom.  We will not be disembodied spirits eternally gazing at the beauty of God, sitting on clouds, as some theologians throughout the history of the church have implied.  We must not ever forget, or attempt to do without, the fact that Jesus is still incarnate to this day in the presence of God.  Perhaps some of the thought that we would not be embodied for all eternity is based on an assumption that the body simply holds us back and prevents us from really knowing God.  This is called into question by the fact that God has not been ashamed to bear a human body for all eternity.  If this is so, we also should not be ashamed of our embodied existence.

            Another question that is relevant for our consideration is what will happen to the world at the end?  There has been a long tradition of thinking that, when everything is culminated, the world will be utterly destroyed and exist no more.  This has a certain appeal because it means that we do not need to care for the earth.  However, the major teaching in the New Testament is that the world will be recreated and established on a more firm foundation.  This should not surprise us as it parallels the recreation of the body.  It is important that we keep this in our minds as we consider (briefly) the various millennial views of the end times.

Chiliastic Views

            In this section, we will be dealing with various chiliastic views of the end times.  The word “Chiliasm” comes from the Greek word for “Millennium” and Chiliastic views are concerned with various interpretations of the concept of “a thousand years” in Revelation 20.  Our discussion here will only be in broad brushstrokes.  Indeed, they will be so broad that some may be very disappointed or even upset.  However, they will be treated in brief, if for no other reason than because, historically speaking, they have only been a matter of serious debate recently.  All of them have to do with an earthly, historical reign of Christ that will last one thousand years and the relation of the return of Christ to that event.

            The first of these views is called premillennialism.  This view is, as we might expect from its name, that Christ will return before the millennium of Christ’s rule begins.  This view emphasizes that it is not possible for human beings to establish the kingdom of God on earth and that only by a dramatic and mighty display of power will God himself do so.

            Postmillennialism asserts that Jesus will come back, but only after he has reigned on earth for a thousand years.  This might seem to be something of a contradiction, but it is not intended to be.  Christ will reign, but not physically.  Christ’s reign will be inaugurated and sustained by the power of the Holy Spirit.  Most often, this view emphasizes the role of the church in the establishment of the kingdom of God, believing that, by changing laws and establishing righteous cultures, the church will participate so fully in God’s transformation of the world that God will establish his kingdom in and through the church.

            A word must be shared in critique of these two views, in spite of their history and wide number of adherents.  There is a sense in which there is a division between conservatives and liberals in that conservatives are less convinced of the power of humanity to establish the kingdom of God on earth than liberals and are thus more likely to be premillennialists.  However, a more significant division exists.  When the world situation is such that it seems that life is getting better and better and, as the church succeeds in shaping culture to a greater or lesser degree, postmillennialism becomes very popular.  This seems to be the case because the convictions of postmillennialists seem to be coming true.  Conversely, when world history takes a turn where things seem worse and worse (as they are at the time of this writing), premillennialism becomes popular, because it seems that human beings cannot get anything right and that nothing short of a direct act of God could overcome our sin.  In light of the fact that external circumstances play such a determinative role in these two views, it seems hard to take them entirely seriously.

            Preterism is not, strictly speaking, a chiliastic view, but, as it provides an alternative to the two main views, it should be touched on here.  Preterism comes from the Latin word meaning “past.”  While both Premillennialism and Postmillennialism look to the future for the fulfillment of God’s plans, Preterism claims that God’s plans have already been fulfilled.  There are many different strands of preterism (as there are for each of these views), but in its more extreme form, it claims that everything that is predicted in the New Testament, including the resurrection of the dead and the return of Christ have already happened and indeed had happened by 70 AD when Jerusalem was attacked and destroyed.  This has certain appealing aspects, especially in its more mild forms, but runs up against problems noted above as to the physical nature of the return of Christ.

            The final major view is amillennialism, which, as its name implies, does not believe that, when the book of Revelation speaks of a thousand year reign of Christ that it means it literally.  Instead, the view is often that the thousand year reign is roughly equated with the existence of the church, where God’s reign is established, at least partially.  There are perhaps more variations in this view than there are in the others, so it is extremely difficult to tack down in consistent terms.

            I have no intention of providing a detailed analysis comparing and contrasting these different views.  The main concern I have over the debate that rages in certain branches of the church (though, interestingly enough, is nearly completely ignored in other parts) is that it seems to be establishing an earthly and embodied reign that is somehow separate from the eschatological kingdom of God.  If the eschatological reality includes human beings who are resurrected in glory and embodied for all eternity, dwelling in a new heaven and a new earth with a Lord Jesus Christ who is also incarnate for all eternity, how can we distinguish a separate earthly embodied reign?  It is my fear, though some might disagree, that this acknowledgement of a physical reign hides a view of the ultimate destruction of the world and all flesh, including the humanity of Christ.

Chapter 07, Eschatology, Between Death and Resurrection

Between Death and Resurrection

            At this point, we take a step away from eschatology proper and deal with the question, “What happens to us after we die but before we are raised again in glory?”  This is not, strictly speaking, a question of eschatology as it is dealing with things that happen before the end, but it is not totally inappropriate to deal with them here.  Strictly speaking, our eschatological reality is of resurrected humanity, where we are bound to Christ and dwell in the presence of God for all eternity, joined in the dynamic fellowship of the Triune God that is so far from being boring that it is described in the New Testament in terms of feasts and celebrations.

            However, many faithful Christians want to know what happens to their loved ones who pass away between their death and their resurrection.  The only problem with this question is that the Bible is not totally clear about an answer.  There are various theories, but none of them answer all the questions.  In the end, it is probably best not to make a hard and firm decision, but to allow the confidence in the resurrection to reign in our thoughts, but we will consider some of the major explanations, how they make sense of the Biblical witness, but also how they do not answer all the questions.

            The first option we will consider is commonly called “soul sleep.”  According to this view, when we die, our souls “sleep,” being unaware of the passing of time.  Then, at the final resurrection, everyone who has died “wakes up” at the same time and we arrive simultaneously at the judgment.  This is helpful because it emphasizes the resurrection in a powerful way and makes use of biblical imagery.  However, there are other texts that seem to speak of an intermediate state, where we are in the presence of God before the general resurrection.

            The next option is known as “Annihilation.”  This view is often held by people who have serious problems with the concept of an eternal hell.  Instead, it is proposed that the resurrection only includes those who have been reconciled to God and will spend eternity in personal fellowship with God.  Everyone else is simply “annihilated,” that is, death is the end for them in every sense of the word.  There is no resurrection for them at all, which can be seen as a good thing because their resurrection would not be to glory but to condemnation.  There are, however, many problems with this view.  When the Bible speaks of a general resurrection, it means it quite literally.  Further, Jesus even speaks of two resurrections in this way (John 5:28-29).  “Do not marvel at this; for an hour is coming, in which all who are in the tombs will hear his voice, and will come forth; those who did the good deeds to a resurrection of life, those who committed the evil deeds to a resurrection of judgment.”

            A third option is that there is an intermediate state.  This seems to be the best of the options because it seems to incorporate most of the biblical witness, like the story of the rich man and Lazarus, where the rich man is in “Hades,” where he is “in torment” before the general resurrection.  Regardless of what else this story might tell us, it points to our being aware and having use of our reason between our deaths and our resurrection.  The problem is less a textual one and more a theological one.  The Bible is clear that there is no such thing as a merely spiritual existence for human beings.  We only exist as both soul and body.  Any belief in an intermediate state would imply that it is an embodied existence, but we must ask, where does this body come from?  It is not the purely natural body, as that is still lying in the grave; nor is it the resurrected body, as that is the body that will rise out of the same grave.  It is not clear what kind of existence an intermediate state would imply, but it still seems to be the best option.

            The real question that we need to engage with at this point is, “Which texts should we take literally and which should we take figuratively.”  This does not mean that we take any of the Bible less than totally seriously.  However, it is not possible to take every passage that deals with this topic literally as they portray mutually exclusive depictions.  Clearly, whatever happens between our death and resurrection, it is not inherently self-contradictory.  The weakness is not in the reality we are concerned with, but with our ability to understand it.  It must always be remembered that, historically, this has not been seen as a question that strikes to the root of the Christian faith.  It is entirely possible for two faithful people to disagree on this topic and we should always be ready to adopt an attitude of toleration on this issue.

Chapter 07, Eschatology, Divine Judgment, Hell

Hell

            Hell has become an unpreachable doctrine in many mainline churches.  The reason for this is because there is a long history of preaching and doctrine where hell is related only to the wrath of God, at times almost portrayed as the sadistic torture chamber of God, where poor, unfortunate mortals suffer at the hands of pitchfork-wielding demons, as if demons inflicted punishment as opposed to suffering it themselves.

            Though the mainline does not tend to preach much on the reality of hell and judgment, there are other branches of the church that do emphasize these things.  However, far from encouraging the mainline to rediscover this important aspect of their faith, it has deepened their apprehension.  This is because the churches that emphasize hell do so in the traditional way since the middle ages and the rise of Protestantism.  Hell is the place where sinners suffer the wrath of God as divorced from his love, mercy and compassion while heaven is where the redeemed enjoy the love, mercy and compassion of God as divorced from his wrath.  In some strands of predestinarian thought (though by no means all), God does not have any love at all for the reprobate (those who will be condemned) and no wrath at all for the elect (those who will be redeemed).

            But can we do this?  Can we think and act as if the attributes of God are divided against one another?  Can God really manifest his wrath without simultaneously manifesting his love?  If God is undivided, this is not possible, so we are left with the task of thinking out hell and judgment in light of God’s mercy and heaven in light of God’s wrath.  It is not a task that most people are excited about, nor is it one that much of tradition has prepared us to do, but it is necessary nonetheless if we do not want to continue this split doctrine of God.

            Hell has been described in many ways.  Unfortunately, the poets throughout history have tended to shape our thoughts about hell more than the scripture.  Dante described nine circles of hell of progressively more gruesome punishment.  More modern existentialist philosophy has spoken of hell as something that is reflected in other people.  Some have even denied the existence of hell, either because of an apprehension of admitting that they believe something like hell (partly because of all the unhelpful baggage surrounding it) or because they believe that life on earth is so bad (for them or others) that there could not possibly be anything worse than this.  Others still deny the existence of hell because they cannot reconcile a loving God with the existence of hell.

            And yet, we are not allowed to trivialize or invent a new understanding of hell if we hope to remain true to the scriptures and the Christ to whom they bear witness.  Once again, we need to understand the purpose of hell and divine judgment in light of the person and work of Christ, for we cannot understand the rejection of the work of God unless we understand that work carefully.

            This entire work has emphasized that God’s assumption of our humanity in Christ implicates absolutely every single human being who has ever lived, as each human being partakes of the common humanity that Jesus assumed.  By entering into our broken human nature, bending it back to God, and finally putting it to death, Christ has objectively dealt with the curse of sin.  By spilling the divine blood, every single sin that has been or will be committed has been atoned for.  If this is the case, what does hell punish?  Whatever is punishes, it cannot be anything that Christ has already atoned for, that is, not for our broken natures that drive us toward sin, nor for our actual sins that we have committed, no matter how evil they may have been.  In Christ, God has plumbed to the depths of all of humanity.

            So how could anyone go to hell?  This is an important question because, once again, the New Testament treats hell as a reality.  Those who go to hell are those who have rejected the free gift of God, that has been extended to them with no questions asked.  Such a rejection is completely unexplainable and is described in the New Testament as “the mystery of iniquity,” that is acknowledged as real but never explained.  In the final analysis, the only people who go to hell are those who have rejected Christ.

            However, this has been criticized for being arbitrary and silly.  After all, if God has gone to such lengths to redeem humanity, why would something as simple as unbelief stop him from including everyone?  This view presupposes that going to heaven is always a good thing for everyone without condition, but the Biblical witness calls this idea into question.  Throughout the Old Testament, when people encounter God or even an angel from the Lord, they find themselves in wonder and amazement that they were not consumed and destroyed.  When Isaiah, in a vision, encountered an image of the glory of God (hardly a direct, unmediated encounter), his only response is “Woe is me, for I am undone!”  The Old Testament certainly emphasizes the fact that God is a consuming fire who is not to be approached lightly.

            The New Testament does not lessen this image.  If the evil of humanity is so intense that it drives human beings to murder the Son of God, God in their midst, then it might not be a good thing for people who insist on spitting in God’s face, even knowing full well the free gift that is offered, to be in the unmediated presence of God.  It is when we remember this major motif in the Bible that we can begin to understand hell in light, not only of the wrath of God, but also of the grace and mercy of God.  It is as if God is saying to the one who refuses him to the very end, “I have not forgotten you, nor utterly rejected you, but have loved you with a love that will not let you go.  Because of this love, I will not force you into my presence with the saints in heaven, for that would be the worst and least loving thing that I could do.  However, I still have a place for you, that is better for you than heaven.”  This is not to say that hell is a pleasant place; far from it.  Indeed, it is just as unpleasant as the New Testament makes it seem.  However, it is important to remember that, as horrible as hell may be, and as much as we should never wish to go there (nor wish that anyone else should go there), it is a better place for the unredeemed sinner than heaven.

            A word must be said about relating the wrath of God to those who are redeemed, for it would be just as irresponsible if we neglected this as if we neglected to relate the grace, love and mercy of God to our understanding of hell.  There are some hints that even believers will receive judgment before the end.  This judgment is not one unto condemnation, as they are redeemed and there is no longer any condemnation in them.  However, it is a real judgment.  Paul warns the Corinthians (1 Corinthians 3:10-15) that what they do with what God has given them matters and if they do not build worthily on the foundation of Christ, it will be consumed, “but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire.” 

Another important text is Revelation 20:11-15 which speaks of the final judgment.  What is emphasized in the text and in Christian tradition is the book of life, where everyone whose name is not found in the book of life is condemned.  However, the text says that there are more books opened and that “the dead were judged from the things which were written in the books, according to their deeds.”  This is not just reserved for those who will be condemned, but everyone.  In fact, there are passages that speak of the judgment of God beginning with the very household of God (1 Peter 4:7).  We must always remember that believing in Jesus, while it means we will not be condemned, does not mean that we will not be judged.

There is one more powerful implication of the doctrine of hell that cannot be ignored.  The existence of hell is the final proof that, in spite of all the relativism we see around us in all its forms, we do indeed live in a moral universe.  What we do does indeed matter.  God does actually say “No” to evil and takes it seriously.  This is shown first in the reality of the crucifixion, where God took his stand against everything that is contrary to God and bore it upon himself, nailing it to the cross.  If absolutely everyone was reconciled to God for no other reason than that they were created, then good and bad, right and wrong, no longer have any meaning.  God does indeed stand against our evil; it is not brushed under a rug but dealt with decisively.  Our evil is not simply dismissed with the wave of God’s hand, but was overcome by the suffering and death of Christ.  The morality of the universe is not overturned or lessened in any way by the life, death, resurrection and ascension of Christ, but tremendously amplified.

Chapter 07, Eschatology, Divine Judgment

Divine Judgment

            If there is a Christian belief that has fallen on hard times in recent decades it is the doctrine of hell and the divine judgment.  However, in spite of its unpopularity, it is an extremely common theme in the New Testament, especially on the lips of Jesus himself, and so cannot be ignored.  There have been many people in the twentieth century, such as theologians Karl Barth and Thomas F. Torrance and author Madeleine L’Engle, who have been branded as “universalists” (that is, people who affirm that, ultimately, everyone will be saved and nobody will go to hell) but were not.  The reason why they were so branded is because they held to a different understanding of what Christ has done and the nature of evil than the mainstream.

            The reason why this is important for this discussion is because I find myself in profound agreement with some of their most important viewpoints, but I wish to make it clear that I do not affirm any form of universalism, with the possible exception of a “universalism of hope” where we hope that all will finally come to saving faith (however, this form of universalism is really not worthy of the name as it does not actually affirm basic universalist ideas). 

The issue lies in the understanding of what has been accomplished in Christ.  It has been argued throughout this work that the incarnation, that is, God becoming a human being in Jesus Christ, is intrinsically Salvific, that is, the entire life of Christ plays a role in our salvation.  Views that emphasize the cross as the primary or exclusive locus of the atonement tend to think of salvation in purely external categories; that is, in terms of satisfaction.  The common image is that of a debt that is owed to God.  We have a debt, God pays it, and so we are reconciled.  Another theme that is acknowledged is substitution, that is, though we deserve death because of our sins, Jesus is our substitute and takes our place on the cross, suffering the death that we deserve, liberating us from the sentence of death.

The only problem with this view is that it does not go far enough.  It affirms that our sin deserves punishment that needs to be borne by God in our place, but it ignores the fact that every aspect of our lives, even at our most faithful, need to be substituted for by God.  To say that Christ only substitutes for our death implies that the rest of our lives do not need to be substituted for, but this is clearly not the case, because we see that when the Holy Spirit moves in the lives of believers it does so by taking the things of Christ and making them ours, not least the prayer, worship, faith, and even repentance of Christ.  There can be no real question as to whether or not every aspect of our lives needs to be taken and redeemed by Christ in such a way that Christ takes our place in it, because this is indeed what he has done.  At whatever point we say that Jesus does not need to take our place, we claim that we do not need redemption at precisely that point.  This way of understanding the atonement could be called “total substitution.”

It is here that the charge of “universalism” might be raised.  If Jesus has taken our place, not only in death, but throughout his life, taking up and substituting for every part of our response to God in such a way that, in the end, we do not contribute anything at all to our salvation, does this not mean that, since God has done everything, we do not need to do anything and we can just sit back and be saved, regardless of what we do with the gospel?  Indeed it does not, but this way of thinking reveals that our common way of thinking about this issue is not adequate to what is actually the case.

The classical ways of thinking about what roles humanity and God play in our salvation are Monergism and Synergism.  Monergism affirms that it is indeed the case that salvation is one hundred percent divine act and is therefore zero percent human act, that is, God does everything and humanity does nothing.  Synergism argues that God does something and humanity does something.  This might mean the work is shared by God and humanity 50/50, or 75/25, or even, if we are trying to remember the priority of God in our salvation, 90/10 or even 99/1.  Syngergists rightly point out that Monergists wrongfully cut human participation out of the picture.  Monergists rightly point out that Synergists place too much emphasis on the ability of humanity to accomplish something acceptable by God and that, even if we are responsible for one percent of our salvation, we will still fail to do our part.

            The problem with both of these views is that they approach the problem of salvation from a strictly logical way rather than an ontological way (that is, a way that is shaped by how things actually are).  We take our cue from the person of Christ.  Recall from chapter two that everything that Jesus did is simultaneously the act of God and the act of a concrete human being.  The words that he spoke were both truly divine words and truly human words.  The point is that, in Christ, one hundred percent divine agency and one hundred percent human agency are in no way contradictory, but function quite well together.  In Christ, “all of grace” does not mean “nothing of humanity.”  Instead, “all of grace” means “all of humanity.”  This cannot be arrived at by logical processes, for logically, “all of grace” cannot mean anything but “nothing of humanity” (and, thus, Monergism).  However, by considering, not what we think God does but what God has actually done, we see that our logical tools on their own are not adequate for understanding the work of God.

            This has implications for our understanding of salvation because it is only as we are in Christ that we are saved and so we are saved, not just by a divine act, but by a truly human act, but by such a human act that is also a divine act.  Further, the reality of Christ’s total substitution for our response does not allow us to remain passive.  To remain passive would be to say that what Christ has done makes no difference.  In light of what Jesus has done on our behalf and in our place, we come to understand that no response that we could come up with is sufficient to satisfy God, but only the response of Christ.  This does not lead us to sit around, or worse, engage in a lifestyle of sin, but prompts us to renounce ourselves and our way of doing things, take up our cross, and follow Christ in every way.

            The fact is that, in spite of the fact that our human response can have no real weight in the eyes of God, it is still necessary.  This necessity is not to be understood in a synergistic sense, but rather in an ontological sense (that is, pertaining to things that are).  For one who is in Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit, who has the things of Christ mediated to them so that Christ is living his life of obedience to the Father in and through them by the power of that same Spirit, to think that a person like this would not begin to participate in the work of God would be nonsensical.  To be a person like this and not be fundamentally changed would be equivalent to saying that Christ is not Christ.  To be grafted into Christ and remain unchanged is a contradiction in terms.

            In spite of the fact that Christ has provided the perfect human response which implicates every single human being, regardless of whether they have come to faith, we know that there are indeed some who finally reject the act of love that God has shown them.  There have been many people who have tried to explain this rejection in one way or another.  For example, John Calvin argued along these lines.  Why is it that some people go to heaven and some go to hell?  Because some believe and some do not.  Why do some believe and some do not?  Because some are predestined to election and some are predestined to reprobation.  Why is that?  I do not know.  Calvin was trying to provide answers where he perceived the Bible providing answers.  However, careful study has increasingly shown that the mention of predestination in the New Testament is not referring to a rigid system of predestination like Calvin advocated.

            It seems that, in light of the Biblical witness, the following argument would be more appropriate.  Why do some people go to heaven and some to hell?  Because some believe and some do not.  Why do some believe and some do not?  I do not know.  The reason for this is because we human beings do not know why some believe and some do not.  For those who believe, the decision for faith was the easiest, most natural thing in the world.  When we encountered the love and truth of the living God, we were set free to respond in such a way that to refuse God’s grace would be the most irrational thing in the world.  And yet, we know that some do indeed refuse it.  Hell and condemnation are spoken of in the New Testament far too often to avoid the topic.  So, if we grant that there is a hell, and that there are people who go to this hell as the result of divine judgment, we need to ask what hell is like, who goes there, and why.

Chapter 07, Eschatology, Christ's Return

Christ’s Return

            One of the dominant themes within the New Testament writings is that, though Jesus died, rose from the dead and was ascended to heaven, he will not remain physically distant from us but will return again in glory.  Much ink has been spilled over this issue, and much of it is not helpful, especially when attempt has been made to develop a timeline for when Christ will return in relation to other world events.  Because there are so many different variations in interpretation and the texts are ambiguous in exactly how they must be understood, the treatment here will be in broad brushstrokes, sticking to the very most basic issues at stake.

            The issue of Christ’s return is complicated by the fact that there is a sense in which Christ has already returned and is present with us even now.  Jesus says at one point that there are those who are with him at that time who will not taste death before they see him coming in glory (Matthew 16: 28, Mark 9:1, Luke 9:27).  The vast majority of the history of the church has interpreted that prediction as referring to Pentecost.  When this is the approach taken, it is acknowledged that, in the giving of the Holy Spirit, Christ is indeed present with us; however, this is not the return in glory that Jesus spoke of.  There are some who consider the gift of the Spirit at Pentecost to be the fulfillment of Christ’s return.  This view strikes me as problematic in light of some of the implications of the return of Christ that would be nullified if Christ has already returned in every sense spoken of in the New Testament.  However, as this is not the position of this work, it will not be engaged with at any length.

            However, it is important to take a moment and understand some of the New Testament evidence that the church is to expect a distinct return of Christ that is not identical with the giving of the Spirit on Pentecost.  Every letter of the New Testament is written from the point of view of the Resurrection.  If the Resurrection of Christ were to be denied, the letters would collapse into intelligibility.  It could just as strongly be said that each of the New Testament letters is written in expectation of a physical and powerful return of Christ.  Every single book of the New Testament was written after Pentecost.  To speak of a return of Christ that is identical with the gift of the Spirit would make absolutely no sense.

            There are further clues that Jesus’ return in the fullest sense is physical (though it will still be a resurrected humanity).  When Jesus ascended to heaven (Acts 1:6-11), there are two strangers who appear to the disciples who tell them that Jesus will return in the same way they have seen him leave, that is, physically.  The other major texts that imply a physical and powerful return of Christ are in the book of Revelation, where Christ is portrayed as forcefully asserting his reign in the midst of our world of space and time, establishing a new heaven and a new earth, overthrowing the armies and rulers of the world.

            If the fact is predicted that Jesus will indeed return as a conquering king who will fully and finally institute the full reign of God over the earth, what are some of the implications of this?  The most significant for Christian life and hope in the here and now is that it is the assurance that the world is not as it should be, that even though God has entered into our world, even though Jesus has declared that the kingdom of God has drawn near and the life, death, resurrection and ascension of Christ are so profound that they set the entire world on a different foundation, the work is not utterly completed.  We must not confuse the world as it is today with the world as God would have it.  Though sin has been defeated and overcome in an objective sense, it still lingers on.  The kingdom of God has come and is continually pressing against the kingdom of humanity, but the latter has not yet totally been overtaken by the former.

            Another implication is that it is God who will establish his final kingdom on earth and not human beings.  There is a sense in which we have been called to participate in the establishment of the kingdom of God in various ways here and now, but the actual transformation is a work of God and not a work of human beings.  This final triumph of God does not at all mean that we are stagnant until then, expecting Christ’s return as if he were a knight in shining armor while we sit utterly helpless.  Indeed, as will be argued more directly later, the fact that the final state of the world has already been made known means that we press forward all the more boldly in works that move toward that point, even while knowing that the consummation will only come at the hands of God.

            This has a further, two-fold consequence.  On the one hand, it empowers the church and individual Christians to stand for the causes of God because, as people who know how things will end up, we can have confidence even in the face of setbacks.  The other side of this consequence is that, although we are human beings working on God’s behalf, we are freed from placing our hope in human leaders of one kind or another.  We do not need to despair when our human leaders let us down, when they fail to keep the peace and when they lie to us.  What else could we expect, so long as God does not reign fully throughout the entire world?  Knowing that the deliverance of the world will come from God enables us to stand with confidence as human leader after human leader fails.

            Another important factor comes from the fact that, although tradition from the second century onwards has made a distinction between a first and second coming of Christ, where the first was when Christ was born of the Virgin Mary and the second is his mighty return in glory, the New Testament never speaks of the coming of Christ in the plural.  According to the Biblical witness, there is only one coming of God in the flesh, although this one coming is spoken of in a two-fold way.  It is as if Christ was going to come in glory anyway, but that, in the love, mercy and grace of God, he came among us early, to give us a foretaste, as it were, of the coming kingdom.  If this is the case, the question, “Why has Jesus waited so long to come back,” is really not appropriate.  Instead, we should marvel that Jesus came a first time at all, that the kingdom of God has not remained simply a prediction but has actually broken in on us in a real way long before the final consummation of God’s purposes for humanity.

            The question that has been raised over the years has been “When is Jesus going to come back?”  Many people have put forward different theories, speaking of certain world events that are predicted to accompany the end.  Incidentally, every generation of Christians has believed that they have seen these events in their own time.  This does not mean that the predictions are not valid, but that our ability to interpret them is not always reliable.  It also serves to remind us of the fact that, indeed, nobody knows the day or hour when Christ will return.  It seems that the desire to develop a timeline of the end times is rooted in a desire to probe more deeply into the predictions of the New Testament than Jesus’ assertion that we will not know the day or hour will allow us to.

Chapter 07, Eschatology, The Resurrection, Other Implications of the Resurrection

The Resurrection

            The very first words in the Nicene Creed regarding eschatology are, “We look for the resurrection of the dead.”  Perhaps the single most important topic to consider as far as the culmination of God’s work in our midst is concerned, is the physical resurrection of every human being.  The resurrection is the source of all true Christian hope for eternal life.  It is at this point that Christian hope is at extremely sharp distinction from all forms of pagan hope. 

Pagan hope is rooted in humanity in one way or another.  In the ancient world, the finality of death was seen as an enemy.  Early stories, such as the epic of Gilgamesh, wrestle with the problem of mortality.  If human beings are all destined to die, what joy can there be in life?  The quest for immortality was seen to be futile at best, that the only immortality that one can expect is to live on in the memories of others.  This was one of the great motivations to strive for greatness.  The greater one becomes, the more likely they are to attain immortality in the memories of their fellow human beings.  Great kings made monuments to themselves, others achieved fame in military victory.  According to this way of thinking, those such as Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, and others have reached the greatest heights to which human beings are capable, an everlasting place in classroom textbooks.  This is somewhat less than the everlasting life claimed by the Gospel.

Another pagan way to hope is that, by giving one’s life to a cause, the cause will one day see realization.  While this has no doubt happened for many causes, many others have failed in spite of such radical self-giving.  It must be said that many Christians have given their lives for good causes and have done so, not in a pagan, but in a Christian, way.  However, when the causes we support become important in themselves and not because they are part of the ministry of Christ in the world, they have lapsed into Paganism, in spite of our best intentions.

The Christian hope is not in human beings at all, but in the love and promise of God.  Every day, people are buried and we are not seeing them return to life.  The graves remain occupied and countless examples have shown that there is no life after death.  And yet, Christian hope does not depend on having a bunch of examples of resurrection in our daily experience.  Instead, the Christian hopes in God, in the promise that God will not leave his promise unfulfilled, that we will one day be raised from the dead.

But on what is this promise based?  Is it simply a word in a book to which we cling?  Far from it.  The Christian believes that God will raise him or her from the dead, not because they read that Jesus raised a few people during his earthly ministry.  After all, those whom he raised to life at that time suffered and died again.  The Christian believes in the resurrection because Christ has been raised in glory and ascended to the right hand of the Father.  What is more, even this is not a belief that finally rests merely on a text, but one that is grounded in the fact that the Christian has truly encountered this risen Lord through the power of the Holy Spirit.  Jesus lives, even today and forevermore and it is in light of his resurrection that the Christian trusts the promise that they, too, will be raised.

This is an important point and must not be forgotten.  It is not a coincidence that theologians who deny Christ’s physical resurrection (in favor of a merely spiritual “resurrection,” whatever that may be) have very little to offer in terms of hope for an afterlife.  Many deny the resurrection as modern, enlightened people who want to speak to other modern, enlightened people.  However, the moment they do so, they have lost the real word that God has given to us skeptical, self-sufficient modern people.  In spite of our medical advances and our increased life spans, every human being is still destined to die.  None of our modern science has been able to overcome that fact, and it pains modern humanity deeply.  Death still looms over us and stares us in the face.  Death has not become less painful but more so.  The word of hope given in the resurrection is precisely what modern ears need to hear.

Other Implications of the Resurrection

            The resurrection is not just one belief among others that Christians hold.  It has profound implications for many other areas of life.  A few of these will be considered here.  First, it is the promise that death, in spite of the finality it seems to have, will not have the final word.  The grave could not hold the body of our Lord Jesus Christ, and so it will not hold ours as those joined to him.  All the pain and sorrow that seem to rule our world of space and time will one day be shown to be lesser powers when compared to the almighty power of God.  The disease that ravages our bodies, the tragedies that take people before their time, are all exposed to be contrary to God’s final plan and wrongs will be righted before the end.

            The next major implication is that the resurrection shows us that God cares deeply, not just for our souls, but also for our bodies.  Indeed, it shows us that our bodies are just as fully part of who we are as our souls.  We began to understand how important our bodies were when we considered the Incarnation, because God did not just assume a human soul, but entered into a human body from conception onward.  However, if Jesus did not rise from the dead, if the body remained in the tomb forever, we would have doubts about how seriously we are to take our bodies.  The fact that the physical Jesus rose from the dead and ascended into heaven, where he endures forever, shows us that our bodies are things that will be radically transformed, mysteriously regenerated, but never utterly discarded.  Our bodies are loved by God; so much so that God has taken a human body upon himself forever.

            This has a major consequence.  It means that, just as Jesus was resurrected and then ascended, where he remains incarnate forever, our afterlife, where we are in full communion with the Triune God, will be an embodied afterlife.  The New Testament does not know anything of a real existence without being an embodied existence (which causes some confusion, as will be seen below).  This is important because there have been many thinkers throughout the years, even as brilliant and influential as Thomas Aquinas, who have conceived of our eternal existence in purely spiritual terms.  This owes far more to Greek thought, where the body is seen as evil and needs to be disposed of, than Hebrew and Christian understanding.  Our resurrection and eternal existence is truly embodied.

            This has a further implication.  The question has been often asked, “Will we recognize those we knew on earth when we are in heaven?”  There are various ways to answer this question, drawing on one or another passage of scripture.  However, it seems best (and most consistent with the entire method of this work) to look at the actual resurrected body of Christ.  We have reflected that sometimes, Jesus’ disciples recognized who he was and other times did not.  Further, when they do recognize him, it is not primarily because of what he looks like.  It is in the breaking of bread, in his calling them by name, by his success in predicting a miraculous catch of fish (again).  The answer according to the actual New Testament witness seems to be that we will indeed recognize our loved ones, but that recognition will not be as we expect, and perhaps will even be surprising to us.

Chapter 07, Eschatology, Introduction to Eschatology

Introduction to Eschatology

            Up until this point we have discussed the basic nature of the theological task, the actual historical interaction which gives rise to Christian theological reflection in the first place, and the nature of God.  The reality of God has dominated this theology as God is indeed the source of all our reflection about God, about humanity, and about the relationship between the two.  Now, we are directing our attention away from God in the direct sense, though God is always the presupposition of this further discussion.  As we do so, some introductory statements are appropriate.

            Our first topic after our discussion of God is eschatology.  Eschatology literally means “pertaining to the last things.”  The topics covered in this chapter will be those things that the Bible speaks of as happening at the end of time as we know it.  It could be said that our interest in eschatology is rooted in the fact that it is in eschatology that we can see most clearly God’s final purposes for humanity and the created order. 

There are numerous promises that, though the kingdom of God has broken in to our world of space and time and is constantly pressing in on the present age, making us feel the tension between how things are now and what they will ultimately become, that final culmination of God’s purposes has not yet come.  By studying what God has proclaimed and shown us about this final establishment of the kingdom of God, we can achieve a degree of objectivity about what the church should be about now.  Indeed, this is why this topic is placed as the first of the chapters after our discussion of God.  By looking at what God has done and declares will be done, we can grasp something of how that implicates our lives, individually and communally, in this day and age.

A last comment of introduction is that this chapter will likely be somewhat controversial.  Eschatology has become something of a hot topic, especially among certain denominations and subcultures within Western Christianity.  There are those who would make eschatology a dividing line, insisting on a particular interpretation of the visions of the books of Daniel and Revelation.  It is not my intention to be overly speculative.  It is the aim of this chapter to explore the topics of eschatology that have been of primary importance throughout the entire history of the church.  Comparatively little will be said on the chiliastic debates (discussions on exactly how the “thousand years” of Revelation 20:4-5 are to be understood), which has become a major focus of discussion.  Each discussion will be rooted in what God has actually revealed in Christ and room will be left for the limits of our knowledge.  Where not enough information or clarity is present, the relevant considerations will be presented, even if a final position is not settled on.