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Our focus should be on the means by which God restrains the principle of lawlessness—the preaching of the gospel—and we must not spend our energies on useless speculation, for our hope as Christians lies not in our powers of prognostication but in the ultimate and final victory of the Lamb.
No, we long for the same thing Abraham did—a heavenly country and a heavenly city (Heb. 11:16).
The New Testament never holds out the hope that Babylon (the city of man) will become the New Jerusalem (the city of God).
In the face of the prospect of continuing ungodliness, Paul gave Christians the following exhortation: “Live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, while we wait for the blessed hope—the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good. These, then, are the things you should teach” (Titus 2:12–15).
Both Daniel and Jesus spoke of one resurrection in which two distinct groups simultaneously participate—believers and unbelievers—each receiving the appropriate recompense. There is no hint anywhere in these two texts, implied or otherwise, that the resurrection of the righteous and the resurrection of the unrighteous are separated by a period of one thousand years, an essential feature of premillennialism.[1] Both Jesus and Daniel depicted the resurrection of the righteous and the unrighteous as occurring at the same time.
It is beyond question that the resurrection of the righteous and the resurrection of the unrighteous both occur at the sound of the final trumpet, on the last day, when Jesus Christ returns in great glory. The biblical writers saw this as a source of great comfort. This is also the event that categorically marks “the end of the age” (Matt. 13:39).
Even as staunch a premillenarian as George Ladd is forced to admit regarding this passage, “If this is the final judgment, what do we do about the millennium? There seems to be no room for it. The author is frank to admit that if we had to follow this passage as our program of prophecy, there would be no room for a millennium. I would have to be an amillennialist.”[8] How does Ladd escape this dilemma? He does so by denying that this text has anything whatsoever to do with a “program of prophecy.” According to Ladd, Matthew 25:31–46 is a parable instructing Jesus’s disciples about their
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In the twelfth chapter of John’s Gospel, Jesus, who already told us that the resurrection occurs on the last day, said that the judgment occurs at the same time: “There is a judge for the one who rejects me and does not accept my words; that very word which I spoke will condemn him at the last day” (v. 48).
According to J. Dwight Pentecost, the pretribulation conception rests on several essential presuppositions: (1) a “literal interpretation” of the Scriptures; (2) “The church and Israel are two distinct groups with whom God has a divine plan”; (3) “The church is a mystery, unrevealed in the Old Testament. This present mystery age intervenes within the program of God for Israel’s rejection of the Messiah at His first advent”; and (4) “This mystery program must be completed before God can resume His program with Israel and bring it to completion.”[18] This is an important admission, since the
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Carried through in other instances, this would, for example, force us to argue that because the Bible reveals that there are three persons called God in the Scriptures, there must be three Gods. Of course, such a conclusion can only be made by not dealing with the other important line of evidence in the Scriptures, which teaches us that God is one.
In fact, if we look at the biblical data without dispensational presuppositions, we would never conclude that the coming of Christ consists of two separate events seven years apart, with one of them being secret.
this turns the thrice-repeated announcement of Christ’s return into something akin to a cosmic dog whistle.
The first of these terms is apokalypsis, which literally means “unveiling” and refers to the removal of those things that presently obstruct our vision of Christ.
All three words were used interchangeably of both the rapture and the second coming. This means that biblical writers did not distinguish between two phases of Christ’s return, as dispensationalists claim.
The Bible teaches that though there are different aspects involved, they are all part of one event—the blessed hope—when Jesus Christ will come again on the last day to judge the world, raise the dead, and make all things new.
We have been repeatedly reminded that the central figure in redemptive history and eschatology is none other than Jesus Christ.
amillennial understanding of the specific passages that are most important in determining one’s millennial views: Daniel 9:24–27; the Olivet Discourse (Matt. 24, Mark 13, Luke 21); Romans 11; and Revelation 20.
Take away their interpretation of Daniel 9:24–27, and dispensationalism collapses.
dispensationalists read the New Testament in light of the Old Testament, instead of vice versa. Sadly, this prevents them from seeing the passage for what it is, a great messianic prophecy that was fulfilled in the life and ministry of Jesus Christ.
Daniel invoked God’s covenant mercies: “O Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps his covenant of love with all who love him and obey his commands” (v. 4).
Daniel’s prayer also included the fact that Israel had repeatedly broken God’s covenant, and the covenant must be
The total period of seventy sevens in Daniel 9:24–27, therefore, constitutes ten jubilee eras, with the emphasis falling on the ultimate jubilee yet to come after 490 years had passed.[4] In other words, the messianic age.
Not only was the seventy-weeks structure built on the sabbath-jubilee pattern of Leviticus 25, but “Daniel 9 as a whole follows the covenant administration pattern of Leviticus 26. The prayer (vv. 4ff.) corresponds to the . . . confession of Leviticus 26:40, and the prophecy corresponds to the covenant restitution and renewal of Leviticus 26:24ff.”[5] Too often, this important context is overlooked.
In Leviticus 26:43, the Lord declared that a time was coming when “the land will be deserted by them [the Israelites] and will enjoy its sabbaths while it lies desolate without them.”
But it is verse 2 of Isaiah 61 that catches our attention, tying all this together. Isaiah said that the Anointed One’s mission would be to “proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God.” The Messiah would deliver the captives and proclaim that the ultimate jubilee to which the 490 years had pointed had at long last come to fruition.
leads dispensationalists to confuse Christ with antichrist. A more serious interpretive error is hard to imagine.
Daniel used the verb karat, which was often used to describe the cutting ritual associated with the ratifications of covenants. This connects the “cutting off” of verse 26 with the confirming of a covenant in verse 27.
First, if Christ would be cut off in the middle of the seventieth week, what would happen to the last part (three and a half years) of the final seven-year sabbatical period before the jubilee? Here again, we can see how the New Testament writers interpreted the Old Testament. In this case, we find the answer in Revelation 12:14, where John reinterpreted this three and a half years in Daniel as “a time, times and half a time.”
Having developed the broad eschatological themes found throughout the New Testament, we can look at the details of this difficult passage in light of the broader teaching of Scripture. Jesus’s words did not occur in a vacuum but against the backdrop of the eschatological expectation of Israel’s prophets, which he interpreted in light of his own messianic mission.
we need to keep in mind that Jesus’s words indicated that history is sovereignly controlled by God.
The signs of the end are not matters about which to speculate, nor are they indicators that God’s world is out of control. They are signs of the certainty of Jesus Christ’s second
Men and women without faith will see this as proof either that God is all good but not all powerful or that God is not
all good since he does nothing about it. Jesus, on the other hand, said that warfare and tumult, which would continue from his crucifixion to the Roman destruction of Jerusalem and will characterize the entire period between his first and second coming, will be signs of his certain return. These things must happen, he said. They are signs that he himself will come at the end of the age in judgment.
is a promise that the Gospel will be preached, not that it will be believed.
Jesus has not called us to speculate about his coming. Instead, he has called us to persevere to the end during the calamity of nations, the groaning of the earth, the rise of false teachers, and in the face of persecution.
He has called us to take the gospel to the ends of the earth. This is the task with which we must be concerned.
God’s people rejected their Messiah, the true temple. God would now reject the earthly temple.
His coming will not be an isolated, secret, or local event but will be witnessed by the entire world.
Only God in human flesh could predict the future of human history, much less utter the following sentence: “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.”
It must be pointed out that even those Reformed amillenarians who do not see a distinct future for ethnic Israel have held out the likelihood of the conversion of large numbers of ethnic Jews before the return of
This creates a scenario in which dispensational premillenarians are able to look to the land promises in the Abrahamic covenant as still applying to the nation of Israel, undergirding their argument for the necessity of a future millennial kingdom. This is also why dispensationalists so ardently defend the proposition that ethnic Israel has a future in God’s economy against those amillenarians who do not see a future role for ethnic Israel. If it can be shown from this text that “all Israel” refers to the full number of the elect[12] or the sum total of all “true Israelites”[13] and not ethnic
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It is clear, however, that Israel’s salvation must come to pass in the same way in which salvation has come to the Gentiles, “through saving faith in Jesus as the crucified Messiah.”[16] Furthermore, once the nation is converted, Israel will not have a separate theological existence; believing Jews will be brought into the church.
There is no escaping the subject. Amillenarians must be prepared to answer the charge that it is “supressionist” or “replacement” theology, which contends that Israel has been cut off, no longer elect and superseded by the church, that opens the door to modern anti-Semitism.[23] The answer to these charges is found in Romans 11, where Paul set out the future course of redemptive history for Israel. It was Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles, who told us Gentiles that God’s call is irrevocable (v. 29) and that “all Israel will be saved” (11:26).
As Robert Strimple points out, the passage is quite remarkable for what it does not say. For one thing, Paul made no mention of the Jews returning to the Promised Land, nor do we find any reference to a millennial kingdom in which Jesus rules the earth as a Davidic king during an earthly millennium. Nor do we find any reference made by Paul to a postmillennial golden age in which the world will be largely
this would be the ideal time for Paul to mention them. But he does not.
The interpretive key is the second clause of Romans 9:6, where Paul said, “For not all who are descended from Israel are Israel.”
Paul’s point was simply this. God has been faithful to this more narrowly defined Israel, frequently spoken of by commentators as “spiritual” Israel in contrast to “physical” Israel,[26] or “true Israel” in contrast to “Jewish Israel.”[27] True Israel has been the object of his mercy and has been chosen to be the recipient of God’s amazing grace.
The question is not to be understood as, Has God cast off ethnic Israel with respect to his special plan for the future? but rather, Has God cast off ethnic Israel altogether?
In verse 11, we are told that while Israel stumbled, they did not “fall beyond recovery.” This is an important indication that the present judgment on the nation is not final.
Paul’s interpreters debate about the heart of the mystery Paul was revealing. Was it Israel’s hardening, the fullness of the Gentiles, or the salvation of all Israel?
