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Studies in Dogmatics
The Return of Christ
In this series rooted in the normative significance of Scripture, noted Dutch theologian G. C. Berkouwer examines great doctrines of the Reformed faith, developing and defending Reformed theology through interaction with a wide range of theologies and theologians
- GenresTheology
478 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1972
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March 25, 2021
Berkouwer, G. C. The Return of Christ. Trans. James Van Oosterom. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1972.
The book begins with a summary of then-current views on eschatology in general, along with needed rebuttals. There is nothing new or profound on that point, except that Berkouwer is rightly skeptical of any attempt to play off “apocalyptic” as a genre against whatever John was writing. Apocalyptic is kind of like “fulfill” or “already/not yet.” It usually doesn’t mean anything.
The book picks up the pace when Berkouwer surveys Dutch Reformed thought on the intermediate state. The problem is that all of the Reformed (and other Christian) confessions affirm that after death man is more or less conscious as a soul yet still awaiting the final resurrection. Most usually object to this doctrine because it seems to be a Greek dualism. Whether that is true or not, Revelation 6 presents souls under the altar--quite conscious--and praying to God.
What is even more interesting is that critiques of the intermediate state operate on the very time-eternity dialectic that they attack (40). Berkouwer footnotes Klaas Schilder as attacking the intermediate state (Schilder, “Is er een ‘tussentoestand?,’” De Reformatie, XXI (1947), 18-45). It is true that Schilder rejected the beatific vision. I would like to have seen actual footnotes, since Berkouwer hasn’t always interpreted Schilder correctly.
There is a neat discussion on Pope John XXII’s teaching on the intermediate state. John correctly noted that the departed saints could not have yet received the beatific vision, since they are praying to God--and somewhat upset--for God to judge and act. Unfortunately, both John and his medieval counterparts interpreted the white robe as the beatific vision, which led to the bizarre conclusion that the saints in heaven could fall. We will come back to this point in Berkouwer’s chapter on the beatific vision, since he notes several problems but doesn’t develop them.
With all of that said, Berkouwer is not always clear on whether he agrees with a personal, consciousness existence with Christ after death. He notes that the “nakedness” in 2 Cor. 5 does not refer to the separation of body and soul. Rather, given Paul’s Hebraic worldview, it refers to sin and guilt (58). We don’t want to be found wanting in that regard. That certainly makes sense.
With the plethora of solid materials today on the resurrection, we will only note a few highpoints from Berkouwer. When Paul speaks of a “spiritual body” (1 Cor. 15:44), he doesn’t have in mind a New Age escape from the flesh. Rather, it is a body energized by the Spirit (Berkouwer 191).
Kingdom signs: they occur precisely where the bodily existence of man is threatened (200).
In his discussion of the New Earth, he points out how Reformed and Lutherans were always hung up by the limitations (but not illegitimacy) of substance language. Is the earth renovated or thrown away? “In the distinctions of eschatology in Reformed theology the reverse is the case: the accidents vanish, but substance remains” (221). Nonetheless, Reformed theology with its idea of the covenant saw a judicial aspect: “it is not a matter of annihilation, but a judgment in which something will remain.”
Regarding the more popular elements of eschatology--signs, antichrist, the millennium--Berkouwer doesn’t add anything new.
He returns to a problem in the beatific vision. Granted God’s simplicity, how can we see the essence of God? Before we answer that question, Berkouwer points us in the way of more biblical categories: “It is clear that when the Bible talks about God, it does not suggest abstract, metaphysical properties imparted to us in isolation from his relationship to man and from the mode of his revelation” (363).
When the Bible does talk about “seeing God,” it avoids empty categories like “seeing him as he is in himself.” Rather, “the beatific vision is correlatively joined to purity of heart” (379). In fact, it’s hard to even fathom a relationless “as He is in himself,” especially for the Thomists who see persons as relations (or the other way around).
The Bible does talk about seeing God “as He is.” Let’s just leave it at that. God gave us those words for comfort.
As with all of Berkouwer’s material, we get an amazing survey of church doctrine combined with astute analysis.
The book begins with a summary of then-current views on eschatology in general, along with needed rebuttals. There is nothing new or profound on that point, except that Berkouwer is rightly skeptical of any attempt to play off “apocalyptic” as a genre against whatever John was writing. Apocalyptic is kind of like “fulfill” or “already/not yet.” It usually doesn’t mean anything.
The book picks up the pace when Berkouwer surveys Dutch Reformed thought on the intermediate state. The problem is that all of the Reformed (and other Christian) confessions affirm that after death man is more or less conscious as a soul yet still awaiting the final resurrection. Most usually object to this doctrine because it seems to be a Greek dualism. Whether that is true or not, Revelation 6 presents souls under the altar--quite conscious--and praying to God.
What is even more interesting is that critiques of the intermediate state operate on the very time-eternity dialectic that they attack (40). Berkouwer footnotes Klaas Schilder as attacking the intermediate state (Schilder, “Is er een ‘tussentoestand?,’” De Reformatie, XXI (1947), 18-45). It is true that Schilder rejected the beatific vision. I would like to have seen actual footnotes, since Berkouwer hasn’t always interpreted Schilder correctly.
There is a neat discussion on Pope John XXII’s teaching on the intermediate state. John correctly noted that the departed saints could not have yet received the beatific vision, since they are praying to God--and somewhat upset--for God to judge and act. Unfortunately, both John and his medieval counterparts interpreted the white robe as the beatific vision, which led to the bizarre conclusion that the saints in heaven could fall. We will come back to this point in Berkouwer’s chapter on the beatific vision, since he notes several problems but doesn’t develop them.
With all of that said, Berkouwer is not always clear on whether he agrees with a personal, consciousness existence with Christ after death. He notes that the “nakedness” in 2 Cor. 5 does not refer to the separation of body and soul. Rather, given Paul’s Hebraic worldview, it refers to sin and guilt (58). We don’t want to be found wanting in that regard. That certainly makes sense.
With the plethora of solid materials today on the resurrection, we will only note a few highpoints from Berkouwer. When Paul speaks of a “spiritual body” (1 Cor. 15:44), he doesn’t have in mind a New Age escape from the flesh. Rather, it is a body energized by the Spirit (Berkouwer 191).
Kingdom signs: they occur precisely where the bodily existence of man is threatened (200).
In his discussion of the New Earth, he points out how Reformed and Lutherans were always hung up by the limitations (but not illegitimacy) of substance language. Is the earth renovated or thrown away? “In the distinctions of eschatology in Reformed theology the reverse is the case: the accidents vanish, but substance remains” (221). Nonetheless, Reformed theology with its idea of the covenant saw a judicial aspect: “it is not a matter of annihilation, but a judgment in which something will remain.”
Regarding the more popular elements of eschatology--signs, antichrist, the millennium--Berkouwer doesn’t add anything new.
He returns to a problem in the beatific vision. Granted God’s simplicity, how can we see the essence of God? Before we answer that question, Berkouwer points us in the way of more biblical categories: “It is clear that when the Bible talks about God, it does not suggest abstract, metaphysical properties imparted to us in isolation from his relationship to man and from the mode of his revelation” (363).
When the Bible does talk about “seeing God,” it avoids empty categories like “seeing him as he is in himself.” Rather, “the beatific vision is correlatively joined to purity of heart” (379). In fact, it’s hard to even fathom a relationless “as He is in himself,” especially for the Thomists who see persons as relations (or the other way around).
The Bible does talk about seeing God “as He is.” Let’s just leave it at that. God gave us those words for comfort.
As with all of Berkouwer’s material, we get an amazing survey of church doctrine combined with astute analysis.
June 29, 2024
THE TWELFTH VOLUME IN BERKOUWER’S 14-VOLUME “STUDIES IN DOGMATICS”
Gerrit Cornelis Berkouwer (1903-1996) taught systematic theology at the Free University in Amsterdam. The other volumes in this series are: The Providence of God,Faith and Sanctification,Faith and Justification,The Person of Christ,General Revelation,Faith and Perseverance,Divine Election,Man: The Image of God,The Work of Christ,The Sacraments,Sin,Holy Scriptures,The Church. He also wrote books such as The Second Vatican Council and the New Catholicism,Modern Uncertainty and Christian Faith,Recent Developments in Roman Catholic Thought,A Half Century of Theology: Movements and Motives, etc.
He wrote in the first chapter of this 1961/1963 book, “Because last things center about the future return of Christ, which is decisive for the whole of man’s life and all of creation, preoccupation with eschatology has always been a matter of profound existential concern. Eschatology is not---and may not be---a human construction of the future with a more or less complete prediction of what is actually going to happen. Rather, it points to a voice that calls to us in the history of human events and speaks reliably about the future. This is no human fabrication: it is in a real sense the voice of God, even though it comes to us through the human voice of prophets and apostles. Man is intimately bound up in this prophecy of the future… The apocalypse of the future touches his very life.” (Pg. 10)
He states, “We may never lapse into a futurist expectation to and a correspondingly futurist expectation of what is to come, for the promise of the future is inextricably connected with events of the past. The Christian’s expectation… is something completely determined by the unique relation between what is to come and what has already occurred in the past… Because the expectation is directed to Christ, who has come and will come again at the end of time, it lacks a futurist character… the Christian expectation is not directed at abstract, unrelated events in the future, but at Jesus Christ Himself in His Parousia, and that true eschatology may never lack this personal character.” (Pg. 12-13) He continues, “Concentration in this sense does not amount to ‘de-eschatologizing’ as some literalists have charged. Its aim is not to weaken the eschatological expectation but to get at the meaning of the eschatological promise, which has come to us couched in images and concepts whose understanding requires a patient effort.” (Pg. 16)
He points out, “In many theological circles there is considerable sympathy for this notion of the ‘abolition’ of time… The Bible is… addressing itself to the living, eternal God who transcends time, for whom the distinctions and differences of time make no difference. This does not mean, however, that man’s temporality is an insufficiency from which he must escape in order to gain access to eternity, as though the key to the eschatological expectation can only be found in eternity. Nowhere does the biblical testimony about salvation from this kind of antithesis between time and eternity.” (Pg. 41-42)
He explains, “consistent eschatology … proceeds from a tension between a vertical miracle of God and the horizontal course of history in human events… Man and the church, being in history, were forced to de-eschatologize. This constituted the crisis of the delay, which was also the crisis of man. But does the New Testament really present a crisis or impasse of disappointment?... there are surely traces in the New Testament that His coming had been expected sooner. But it does not necessarily follow from this that a crisis in inevitable. A crisis will arise only if faith in God’s promises about the parousia is lost. Understandably, the critics of consistent eschatology have often used this as their point of departure.” (Pg. 73)
He acknowledges, “Yet, is it not reasonable to wonder whether consistent eschatology may not have had a point after all? Years, decades, and centuries have passed since the New Testament was written. Despite the stern reprimands addressed to skeptics in 2 Peter, is there not some basis to their mockery? Are there not reasons, if not to doubt, at least to raise serious questions?... All these hesitations can be summed up in the recurring question of the meaning of the present dispensation, the time between the Lord’s ascension and return.” (Pg. 94)
After quoting a number of verses, he suggests, “There is no hint of either an exclusively futurist or an exclusively present eschaton. Indeed, the relationship between the ‘already’ and the ‘not yet’ constitutes the hallmark of the life of the community of believers… Here we see a healthy motion, a unique striving, a forgetting of what is behind and a pursuing of what is ahead. There is nothing morose, pessimistic, or defeatist in this; instead, there is a strong inclination and motivation to be active in the light of what has been already received in prayer and steadfastness faith, hope and love, and watchfulness and expectation.” (Pg. 113-114)
He asserts, “Those who think of the parousia as an unimaginable event usually give too exclusive attention to it as a cosmic event, the moment when all things will dissolve… Rather than thinking cosmically, one should first of all think apocalyptically… about what is truly unimaginable, the unveiling of everything in an incontrovertible clarity and discernability. This will be the moment of man’s revelation. It will not be a relative and superficial judgment, like the verdicts of man… but a judgment having a clarity that will dispel al hiddenness. There will be no ‘problem’ of sin against the Holy Spirit no justification or the terrible persecutions in the name of service to God… no justification of means by ends. All excuses will be scrutinized, all motives known. In this way the parousia will not be strange: life, as it actually happened in its hourly, daily, and yearly sequence, will be fully known.” (Pg. 160-161)
He comments, “The attempt is frequently made to come up with a systematic harmonization of all the scriptural images and concepts that bear on this transition from the present to the new earth… But are the multiform scriptural passages about the future to be understood?... Not only is it impossible to systematize these images and concepts (the coming on the clouds, the trumpet sound, the opening of the graves, the falling of the stars, etc.), but to do so violates the intent of these passages. These observations… are a protest against a biblicistic eschatology and its efforts to describe the end, an enterprise particularly prominent in connection with the exegesis of the Book of Revelation.” (Pg. 216-217)
He observes, “the New Testament signs do not pertain to an objective, chronological report or description, but to the deep dimensions that… determine the course of history… the eschaton stands above times in which one talks about … times of apostasy, secularization and persecution. It must be related as much to the ‘golden ages’ as to apocalyptic periods. To pay attention to the signs of the times is to understand time. This understanding is free from arbitrary calculation, and it has nothing to do with an isolated ‘end time.’ … Despite the express warnings of the New Testament, there have always been those whose eschatology consisted largely of trying to calculate the date of the Parousia and to interpret the signs of the times only in terms fo some remote ‘end-time, rather than in terms of the last days…” (Pg. 255-256)
He states, “One wonders whether this Johannine perspective [1 Jn 2:19] is not completely lost in circles where there is a belief in a personal antichrist projected into a more or less distant future. On such views, what one has is a kind of ‘knowledge’ of an event that is coming sometime, but does not really affect the present. Compare this with the actuality of the antichrist as it was seen during the days of the Reformation… The Reformers… focused on the idea that the antichrist, rather than being external, proceeded immediately from the church itself.” (Pg. 267-268)
He argues, “Now it seems to me that the historical and eschatological interpretations of Gog are not mutually exclusive. In the apocalyptic depiction of the struggle against the powers of the world… there can be a perspective… that can be assumed into the eschatological proclamation of the New Testament… This is a perspective on the last abomination. Although the Gog of Ezekiel 38 and 39 is framed in historical terms, with names that seem to indicate local political relationships… all of these details have practically disappeared from Revelation 20… This is not intended to set prophecy against apocalyptic, though in the New Testament apocalyptic we see the material concentrated in connection with the definitive conflict and victory expressed in such images.” (Pg, 276-277)
He contends, “What is clear in the New Testament references to ‘the antichrist’ is that this is not a supernatural or superhuman concept, but takes place and manifests itself on a human level. Behind the antichristian powers the shadow of the ‘demonic’ may fall, but with the concept ‘the antichrist’ we find ourselves not on some remote evil terrain, but on the well-known terrain of our daily human existence… It is a human force… that elevates itself and disintegrates through the victory of the Lamb.” (Pg. 278)
Of the “666” symbol in Revelation 13, he comments, “it appears extremely difficult to arrive at a conclusive answer. To admit this may leave the impression that the riddle remains and wisdom and understanding are lacking But just because it is difficult for us to say with certainty what John was talking about 1900 years ago does not make this as yet undeterminable number a ‘mystery’ for us… because John points out the antichrist and admonishes the believers to exercise wisdom, we understand how actual is the confrontation between the community and the antichrist.” (Pg. 280-281)
He asserts, “Chiliasm [i.e., Millennialism] really boils down to a special form of Christocracy… His authority over all things since His resurrection and ascension… [There[ are tensions about the certainty of salvation in the midst of this threatening reality. In the context of these tensions of ‘already’ and ‘not yet,’ of defeat and victory, the doctrine of the two kingdoms comes up for discussion… the fulfillment will bring the dissolution of this duality of kingdoms. Plainly the chiliastic view of God’s penultimate mystery is also important in this context. Will this tension… always remain on earth, or will it disappear in a realization of Jesus Christ?” (Pg. 317)
He says, “Contrary to chiliasm, the coming in of the full number of the Gentiles is not an intermezzo, but neither is Israel’s history an intermezzo for Paul, because the new status of the Gentiles, brought about by God’s merciful election of them, opened new vistas for the people of Israel. The crucial point about Israel seems to me to be whether it is justifiable to draw a relation of entailment between God’s faithfulness and Israel’s return to grace…” (Pg. 349)
He suggests, “We have to admit that ‘hell’ is often spoken of more for its psychological effect than out of truly evangelical concern. Surveying the minimal results of such preaching, theologians and preachers have sometimes been shocked. What they fail to realize is that this preaching is as ineffectual as terrifying sermon about death, which are even less successful in creating more receptivity to the gospel. The gospel does not sound in that kind of preaching, and hell becomes a terror for the soul, but still only an irrelevant abstraction This is one or the worst ways in which preaching can go astray, for it falls short of the standards of clarity and seriousness of the gospel of the cross that is proclaimed to all.” (Pg. 420)
For anyone interested in conservative Reformed theology, this entire series will be of great interest. The diversity of the theologians and sources with whom Berkouwer interacts make this series a very interesting reading project.
Gerrit Cornelis Berkouwer (1903-1996) taught systematic theology at the Free University in Amsterdam. The other volumes in this series are: The Providence of God,Faith and Sanctification,Faith and Justification,The Person of Christ,General Revelation,Faith and Perseverance,Divine Election,Man: The Image of God,The Work of Christ,The Sacraments,Sin,Holy Scriptures,The Church. He also wrote books such as The Second Vatican Council and the New Catholicism,Modern Uncertainty and Christian Faith,Recent Developments in Roman Catholic Thought,A Half Century of Theology: Movements and Motives, etc.
He wrote in the first chapter of this 1961/1963 book, “Because last things center about the future return of Christ, which is decisive for the whole of man’s life and all of creation, preoccupation with eschatology has always been a matter of profound existential concern. Eschatology is not---and may not be---a human construction of the future with a more or less complete prediction of what is actually going to happen. Rather, it points to a voice that calls to us in the history of human events and speaks reliably about the future. This is no human fabrication: it is in a real sense the voice of God, even though it comes to us through the human voice of prophets and apostles. Man is intimately bound up in this prophecy of the future… The apocalypse of the future touches his very life.” (Pg. 10)
He states, “We may never lapse into a futurist expectation to and a correspondingly futurist expectation of what is to come, for the promise of the future is inextricably connected with events of the past. The Christian’s expectation… is something completely determined by the unique relation between what is to come and what has already occurred in the past… Because the expectation is directed to Christ, who has come and will come again at the end of time, it lacks a futurist character… the Christian expectation is not directed at abstract, unrelated events in the future, but at Jesus Christ Himself in His Parousia, and that true eschatology may never lack this personal character.” (Pg. 12-13) He continues, “Concentration in this sense does not amount to ‘de-eschatologizing’ as some literalists have charged. Its aim is not to weaken the eschatological expectation but to get at the meaning of the eschatological promise, which has come to us couched in images and concepts whose understanding requires a patient effort.” (Pg. 16)
He points out, “In many theological circles there is considerable sympathy for this notion of the ‘abolition’ of time… The Bible is… addressing itself to the living, eternal God who transcends time, for whom the distinctions and differences of time make no difference. This does not mean, however, that man’s temporality is an insufficiency from which he must escape in order to gain access to eternity, as though the key to the eschatological expectation can only be found in eternity. Nowhere does the biblical testimony about salvation from this kind of antithesis between time and eternity.” (Pg. 41-42)
He explains, “consistent eschatology … proceeds from a tension between a vertical miracle of God and the horizontal course of history in human events… Man and the church, being in history, were forced to de-eschatologize. This constituted the crisis of the delay, which was also the crisis of man. But does the New Testament really present a crisis or impasse of disappointment?... there are surely traces in the New Testament that His coming had been expected sooner. But it does not necessarily follow from this that a crisis in inevitable. A crisis will arise only if faith in God’s promises about the parousia is lost. Understandably, the critics of consistent eschatology have often used this as their point of departure.” (Pg. 73)
He acknowledges, “Yet, is it not reasonable to wonder whether consistent eschatology may not have had a point after all? Years, decades, and centuries have passed since the New Testament was written. Despite the stern reprimands addressed to skeptics in 2 Peter, is there not some basis to their mockery? Are there not reasons, if not to doubt, at least to raise serious questions?... All these hesitations can be summed up in the recurring question of the meaning of the present dispensation, the time between the Lord’s ascension and return.” (Pg. 94)
After quoting a number of verses, he suggests, “There is no hint of either an exclusively futurist or an exclusively present eschaton. Indeed, the relationship between the ‘already’ and the ‘not yet’ constitutes the hallmark of the life of the community of believers… Here we see a healthy motion, a unique striving, a forgetting of what is behind and a pursuing of what is ahead. There is nothing morose, pessimistic, or defeatist in this; instead, there is a strong inclination and motivation to be active in the light of what has been already received in prayer and steadfastness faith, hope and love, and watchfulness and expectation.” (Pg. 113-114)
He asserts, “Those who think of the parousia as an unimaginable event usually give too exclusive attention to it as a cosmic event, the moment when all things will dissolve… Rather than thinking cosmically, one should first of all think apocalyptically… about what is truly unimaginable, the unveiling of everything in an incontrovertible clarity and discernability. This will be the moment of man’s revelation. It will not be a relative and superficial judgment, like the verdicts of man… but a judgment having a clarity that will dispel al hiddenness. There will be no ‘problem’ of sin against the Holy Spirit no justification or the terrible persecutions in the name of service to God… no justification of means by ends. All excuses will be scrutinized, all motives known. In this way the parousia will not be strange: life, as it actually happened in its hourly, daily, and yearly sequence, will be fully known.” (Pg. 160-161)
He comments, “The attempt is frequently made to come up with a systematic harmonization of all the scriptural images and concepts that bear on this transition from the present to the new earth… But are the multiform scriptural passages about the future to be understood?... Not only is it impossible to systematize these images and concepts (the coming on the clouds, the trumpet sound, the opening of the graves, the falling of the stars, etc.), but to do so violates the intent of these passages. These observations… are a protest against a biblicistic eschatology and its efforts to describe the end, an enterprise particularly prominent in connection with the exegesis of the Book of Revelation.” (Pg. 216-217)
He observes, “the New Testament signs do not pertain to an objective, chronological report or description, but to the deep dimensions that… determine the course of history… the eschaton stands above times in which one talks about … times of apostasy, secularization and persecution. It must be related as much to the ‘golden ages’ as to apocalyptic periods. To pay attention to the signs of the times is to understand time. This understanding is free from arbitrary calculation, and it has nothing to do with an isolated ‘end time.’ … Despite the express warnings of the New Testament, there have always been those whose eschatology consisted largely of trying to calculate the date of the Parousia and to interpret the signs of the times only in terms fo some remote ‘end-time, rather than in terms of the last days…” (Pg. 255-256)
He states, “One wonders whether this Johannine perspective [1 Jn 2:19] is not completely lost in circles where there is a belief in a personal antichrist projected into a more or less distant future. On such views, what one has is a kind of ‘knowledge’ of an event that is coming sometime, but does not really affect the present. Compare this with the actuality of the antichrist as it was seen during the days of the Reformation… The Reformers… focused on the idea that the antichrist, rather than being external, proceeded immediately from the church itself.” (Pg. 267-268)
He argues, “Now it seems to me that the historical and eschatological interpretations of Gog are not mutually exclusive. In the apocalyptic depiction of the struggle against the powers of the world… there can be a perspective… that can be assumed into the eschatological proclamation of the New Testament… This is a perspective on the last abomination. Although the Gog of Ezekiel 38 and 39 is framed in historical terms, with names that seem to indicate local political relationships… all of these details have practically disappeared from Revelation 20… This is not intended to set prophecy against apocalyptic, though in the New Testament apocalyptic we see the material concentrated in connection with the definitive conflict and victory expressed in such images.” (Pg, 276-277)
He contends, “What is clear in the New Testament references to ‘the antichrist’ is that this is not a supernatural or superhuman concept, but takes place and manifests itself on a human level. Behind the antichristian powers the shadow of the ‘demonic’ may fall, but with the concept ‘the antichrist’ we find ourselves not on some remote evil terrain, but on the well-known terrain of our daily human existence… It is a human force… that elevates itself and disintegrates through the victory of the Lamb.” (Pg. 278)
Of the “666” symbol in Revelation 13, he comments, “it appears extremely difficult to arrive at a conclusive answer. To admit this may leave the impression that the riddle remains and wisdom and understanding are lacking But just because it is difficult for us to say with certainty what John was talking about 1900 years ago does not make this as yet undeterminable number a ‘mystery’ for us… because John points out the antichrist and admonishes the believers to exercise wisdom, we understand how actual is the confrontation between the community and the antichrist.” (Pg. 280-281)
He asserts, “Chiliasm [i.e., Millennialism] really boils down to a special form of Christocracy… His authority over all things since His resurrection and ascension… [There[ are tensions about the certainty of salvation in the midst of this threatening reality. In the context of these tensions of ‘already’ and ‘not yet,’ of defeat and victory, the doctrine of the two kingdoms comes up for discussion… the fulfillment will bring the dissolution of this duality of kingdoms. Plainly the chiliastic view of God’s penultimate mystery is also important in this context. Will this tension… always remain on earth, or will it disappear in a realization of Jesus Christ?” (Pg. 317)
He says, “Contrary to chiliasm, the coming in of the full number of the Gentiles is not an intermezzo, but neither is Israel’s history an intermezzo for Paul, because the new status of the Gentiles, brought about by God’s merciful election of them, opened new vistas for the people of Israel. The crucial point about Israel seems to me to be whether it is justifiable to draw a relation of entailment between God’s faithfulness and Israel’s return to grace…” (Pg. 349)
He suggests, “We have to admit that ‘hell’ is often spoken of more for its psychological effect than out of truly evangelical concern. Surveying the minimal results of such preaching, theologians and preachers have sometimes been shocked. What they fail to realize is that this preaching is as ineffectual as terrifying sermon about death, which are even less successful in creating more receptivity to the gospel. The gospel does not sound in that kind of preaching, and hell becomes a terror for the soul, but still only an irrelevant abstraction This is one or the worst ways in which preaching can go astray, for it falls short of the standards of clarity and seriousness of the gospel of the cross that is proclaimed to all.” (Pg. 420)
For anyone interested in conservative Reformed theology, this entire series will be of great interest. The diversity of the theologians and sources with whom Berkouwer interacts make this series a very interesting reading project.
November 4, 2015
A solid synthesis of Orthodoxy Reformed Theology and Barthianism. Especially useful for people who love the reformed church and are fed up with fundamentalism yet still do not understand Barth.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews