Ersatz Theologies, etc.

Eschatology is a consuming passion in certain evangelical Christian circles, with all manner of positions on what will happen in the future. It is almost as though the core belief in those groups is that the Bible is a day planner for future events.

My recent readings in Daniel (part of the annual romp through the whole Bible), the Apocalypse (currently in the Sunday Bible study series), and Mark ( I definitely plan to finish the sermon series in that Gospel, if I live long enough) have brought together some interesting observations.

Just so that no one is horribly shocked by what I write later, I will shock them now and get it over with. Bek will not be happy, but we have had this talk before -- here it comes. I do not believe that Jesus is going to descend from the sky and take away His church so they do not have to go through "The Great Tribulation". That's right. I'm not a Seventh Day Adventist, I don't follow Millerite or Darbyite theology, and I firmly state that a Scofield Bible is not a King James version (King James would have had Scofield executed for inserting all those comments). My theology is somewhere post-Reformation, pre- Second Great Awakening, non-Arminian, very literal in translation from the Koine, and as Hebraic as the Septuagint will permit. In short, I am a non-dispensational Calvinistic Anabaptist, however one may think that to be an impossibility.

Now, as to the 19th and 20th chapters of the Apocalypse, the scene is set at a point in the history of the world where the iniquities of "Babylon" have reached a crescendo and she has been destroyed. While the events of chapters 10-14 and 15-18 may be sequential they appear to be somewhat parallel and perhaps describe the same events but from different perspectives. The whole point of prophecy is not to function as a means whereby people can plan for the next event in sequence, but as a confirmation that God is the one who declares things before they occur -- He has planned the whole show, has absolute control over the actions of the players, and has provided the prophecy so that His people, after the fact, can point to it and say, "See, God said it would happen that way!".

Anyway, in chapter 19 John sees the sky open up and Jesus appears as the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, arriving to (1) consummate His marriage to the Church and (2) begin his thousand year rule over the Earth as King of Israel, with Satan bound in a long orbit to the regions beyond the solar system and back (OK -- that last part is my take on it, but I have no better frame of reference for a bottomless pit). This event is the Rapture. I do not believe the Scripture teaches multiple Second Comings of Christ.

Chapter 20 gives a short summary of the Millennium -- the Church reigns with Christ (her bridegroom) over His kingdom, centered in Israel, with reinstatement of the Temple worship in a golden age with all the rest of the Earth subject to Israel (see Ezekiel and Zechariah for more definitive statements). The cataclysmic event of chapter 19 is then referred to by John as The First Resurrection. Here is where it gets a bit dicey. If we correlate this to Paul's statements in his letters to the Thessalonian church, it is the dead in Christ, along with those who remain alive at that point, who are caught up with Him in The First Resurrection. That is, all those believers who have died from the time Jesus rose, along with any who might be yet surviving The Great Tribulation.

That presents several problems in modern American evangelical theology (the pre-Tribulation Rapture appears to have been invented by J. N. Darby around 1828 and was popularized by Scofield ), since there are even songs about meeting Old Testament saints in the air. Paul doesn't say that. He says, "in Christ", and while those saints may have anticipated Messiah, they were not "in Christ". This may even be referenced by the statement of the angel to Daniel, “As for you, go your way till the end. You will rest, and then at the end of the days you will rise to receive your allotted inheritance.”

In chapter 20, at the end of the thousand years, Satan shows up again, is unbound, and instigates rebellion against Messiah. The armies of the entire world surround Messiah's capital, and God sends a fireball which slags the entire earth -- no survivors among the people who are not part of the First Resurrection. The stage is set for judgment before the Great White Throne, the books, including the Book of Life, are opened, and anyone not found in the Book of Life is tossed into the Lake of Fire.

It is at this point, the Second Resurrection, I think that the Old Testament saints, "all Israel" (Romans 11), and even Millennial proselytes, are raised to eternal life in imperishable bodies. Thus Daniel has his hope consummated "at the end of the days". This solves a thorny eschatological problem.

To many evangelicals, only the First Resurrection is a resurrection to life. In pre-Trib theology, the difficulty then becomes, "What about the people who become believers and are killed for their faith during the Great Tribulation? (Apoc. 7:14)?", and, "What about people who are killed for not worshipping the Beast (Apoc. 13:15)?" These are particularly troubling for two reasons. (1) Pre-Tribbers believe that the Holy Spirit is removed from the earth, with the Church, at the Rapture. This produces a doctrinal conundrum, since Jesus said that no one could come to Him unless the Father drew him, and that the rebirth is a work, not of men, but of the Holy Spirit. How could those people be saved without being born again? (2) Since, in their theology, only the First Resurrection is a resurrection to life, and the post-Trib "born again without the Spirit" believers missed that one, they have had to invent a corollary -- the Continuous Resurrection, which lasts for the 7 years until the tribulation ends. In the Continuous Resurrection, if a "born again without the Spirit" believer dies, he immediately rises to new life. Neither of these concepts has any serious Scriptural foundation, a consequence of Darby's invention.

The Scripture simply states that those not found written in the Book of Life suffer the second Death. It does not say the Second Resurrection is only a resurrection to damnation. It does not say that a person resurrected in the Second Resurrection could not be found in the Book of Life. Getting rid of those misconceptions does away with a number of eschatological problems.

Now what about Mark? In all the Gospel accounts of Jesus speaking about the latter days, he warns his disciples that many would come saying, "εγώ είμι" -- the same thing which He had told the Pharisees and for which they wanted to stone Him. His warning was not intended to let them do future planning, but to alert them to the idea that when He would return, it would be unmistakable, impossible to ignore, and totally unexpected. They were not to fall for any imposters. Paul's letters also bear that out; he further states that for the believers, the day would NOT come as a thief. Sometimes sticking to the actual wording of the Scripture does not make for good sales of popular books and movies.

So now I am fully out of my cave. God is still in charge, and I will stick with sola scriptura, leaving the fables to others.