It’s The End of the World!!! question 173
Here’s one that came in from a friend recently. I expect my answer to thoroughly annoy or anger some folk. Oh well… I was getting too comfortable anyway.
There is a lot of talk right now about the end of times, and a lot of our friends are premillenialists. Could you give a brief overview of the basis for this. Also, all though we do not feel this is a Biblical principle, we also don’t feel it is a salvation issue, would you agree with that? Is this a misunderstanding of scriptures, or is it false teaching.
Just defining premilliennialism is enough to start a knife fight among the followers of Jesus (sadly, many of Jesus’ followers follow him at a considerable distance). A rough and ready definition is that premilliennialism is a teaching that asserts that Jesus will return to this earth and reign a thousand years. There are endless permutations of this doctrine — in fact, the Seventh Day Adventists would already find themselves in disagreement as they believe his thousand year reign takes place in heaven.
People who teach this are called premilliennial because they believe Jesus will come to earth first, and then reign. Others teach that Jesus will come after a thousand year reign in heaven, or that there will be another thousand year period of peace on earth and THEN Jesus will come back. And, of course, many who are not millennial in any way are now teaching that this earth is or will become heaven and… you guessed it… Jesus will come back here.
This earth centric way of thinking is, at a minimum, ironic. I imagine Galileo would find some humor in it.
There are countless experts in prophecy out there presenting prophecy seminars (often adorned with lurid drawings of beasts out of Revelation), and who purport to be experts in all aspects of prophetic teachings. If you attend, you will hear bits of Daniel. Zechariah, and Isaiah for certain. Perhaps you will even get some verses out of Jeremiah and Micah, but the fact remains that the only passage that gives premilliennialists any hope is Revelation 20:1-6. That’s it. The Thousand Year Reign, the linchpin of their faith, teaching, and concern, is never mentioned outside of that one passage.
I am not a millennialist. When I read the Book of Revelation, I see it open with a warning that it is a book of symbols — not a literal description of things and events. For example, do you believe that the streets in heaven are actually paved with gold or that the walls are made of jewels formed in the bowels of the earth? Me neither.
In their one passage, millennialists fail to notice that the only thing they take literally is the thousand years. Everything else is considered symbolic (chains, pits, etc.). Notice what is missing from this passage — and from the rest of scripture. Nowhere in scripture is it ever said that Jesus will touch this planet again. He arrives in the air with a new city and we dwell with him there (see John 14:1-4 where he says the “place” is elsewhere and we have to go to it). We are told that we will meet him “in the air” and “so shall we ever be with the Lord” (1 Thessalonians 4:17).
When Jesus shows up, the Bible describes the earth, the elements, and the universe as being destroyed, melted, burned up or, at a minimum, “laid bare.” There is no Bible verse that says that Jesus will sit on the throne of Jerusalem again (the throne is not mentioned in Revelation 20, nor is David, Jerusalem, etc. ad infinitum). The only way to arrive at premillennial doctrine is to take apocalyptic literature and MAKE it say what you want it to say.
For example, Hal Lindsay told us that the locusts in the Book of Revelation were really Huey Cobra helicopters. Now that those are outdated, so are his prophetic books. No problem…he wrote new ones. And that is the pattern for these prophets. How many of them declared that Clinton was the antiChrist or that Nixon going to China was the beginning of the end of all things? The writers of the Left Behind series said they were convinced the world would end within a generation because there is a line in Daniel that says that news will travel faster than its ever traveled before the end of the world comes. Huh? Hasn’t news always traveled faster than ever? Every generation makes a technological leap. What makes us think our iPods and internet are any more stunning to Daniel’s ancient mind than Gutenberg’s printing press?
People like being scared — they will pay for the privilege (see “Six Flags” amusement parks or movies like “Saw”). Christians who think Halloween is too dark to engage in will flock to a church to hear “prophets” tell them of coming tragedy, doom, terror, and death. Why? Because it’s fun to be scared! Oh, and there’s one more thing…
In premillennial doctrine, you get a chance to pick up a sword and have at all the evil people you can find. Either before or after Jesus’ earthly reign (out come the knives between those two schools of thought!) there will be, they say, a horrible war wherein all who are with Christ will destroy all who refused to acknowledge him as Lord. In other words, we get to be the Taliban for awhile! We get some serious payback on how those atheists, secular humanists, politicians and Simon Cowell have treated us through the years! I’ve heard sermons from the time I was a boy that announced the end was nigh and that when the battle came there would be blood up to the reins of our horses. Which begs the question: what about the infantry? Will they have flippers and snorkels? Or… why are we on horses when the opposition gets Huey Cobras?
The truth is much more mundane, boring, and difficult: love one another. Be faithful. Care for each others’ needs. Walk humbly with your God. Love justice and mercy. And wait for the Lord.
That said, I do not consider this a salvation issue. Since the Bible has so little to say about the end of the world, it cannot be a central doctrine up there on a par with the Deity of Jesus.
April 27th, 2009 at 6:05 pm
But, you have to admit, it would make a good scary movie
April 27th, 2009 at 7:50 pm
I was raised with the proverbial Cobra Helicoptor flying overhead. I always thought that was cool when those talks came up. As a kid, anything that blew up or blew things up was cool. Imagine my chagrin to grow up and hear there would be no cool helicopters or beasts with heads like something in a Harry Potter movie. Oh Well. Think I will go watch the news.
April 27th, 2009 at 8:32 pm
The Wife and I had dinner recently with some people from church and at our table sat the man who is the personal body guard for Hal Lindsay. When that was revealed, everyone else at the table talked about what a wonderful man of God Lindsay happens to be and that his knowledge of and insight into the Word towers above the rest of us. I had to bit my tongue to keep from saying I thought Lindsay was a theological idiot.
For the record, I do think heaven will be here on a redeemed earth. I’ve been assured it would be somewhere in the deep south, possibly Nashville! Who am I to argue with that?
April 27th, 2009 at 8:36 pm
No, Greg. I’m pretty sure it will be nearer to Searcy, AR.
I pray facing that direction five times a day because of it.
Oh…the sadness…the sadness…
April 28th, 2009 at 2:45 am
I totally agree with your post! Just sharing the last verse of a poem on my blog that I wrote for Easter:
But until then,
Be salt and light. Seek peace and pursue it.
Turn from evil! Do good. Show others The Way.
Honor everyone.
Love each other deeply and from the heart.
Fight the good fight of faith, until that very day.
Karin Ristau
And He’ll come like a thief in the night – totally unannounced.
April 28th, 2009 at 1:42 pm
Ok, no one has said it yet, so I will. I am neither a pre millenialist nor a post millenialist. I am a pan millenialist. I beleive that when Jesus comes back it’s all going to pan out. And wherever he is, I will be glad to be.
April 28th, 2009 at 2:25 pm
I respect the agnostic position on eschatology, but I think there are a couple of separate ideas here.
While the Bible is indeed sparse on ‘end of the world’ language (which seems to support the idea that the world isn’t going to end — the Bible *would* be relatively quiet about something that isn’t going to happen), I don’t think it is sparse at all on end-times information.
When I was at West Point in the early 1990s, the Academy was in the midst of a major paradigm-shift. Leadership had a major realization: we were producing superb West Point Cadets, who suffered major culture shock upon graduation and entry into actual service. Deep transformation was needed at many levels of the USMA environment, so that we could once again produce leaders who were actual warfighters and prepared to lead soldiers in the 21st century world.
When I first became a Christian in the mid-1990s, this was one of the questions that troubled me deeply. Why was God doing all this work to train his people to think for themselves, to discern his “good and acceptable and perfect will,” if it had nothing to do with my post-’graduation’ life? Like Twain quipped, “Nothing surpasses the tortures of hell except the exquisite boredom of Heaven.” (or something like that)
From the opposite perspective, imagine if Duncan had gotten to Parris Island and been told, “After Basic, you’re going to teach ballet to the Inuit.” What on earth is all this rifle training, obstacle course work, and character formation for, he might think?
But what if, just what if our current training is deeply related to the life we’ll be living after our resurrection? I’m sure you’ve noticed the size of the universe, and how poor a job we’ve done with that whole, “exercise dominion over Creation” command.
Why am I being formed in the image of Christ?
I believe that heaven is off site, not this planet. In fact, we are discussing this for the sermon on Sunday. Anyway, I believe that we are being prepared for a lot of work in heaven. Remember that line about “I will make you rulers over many”? Should be fun!
April 28th, 2009 at 5:38 pm
I don’t think it is an on-site/off-site issue (although making the whole creation just to nuke it doesn’t seem like the Father who raised Jesus’ actual body from the dead).
Remember how Mark describes the sky being torn open during Jesus’ baptism?
I believe that when Jesus appears, that tear will happen everywhere, at every point of reality, and it won’t ever close. God’s reality and our reality will be reunited. I don’t believe heaven will be this planet — but maybe as Eden was placed in the midst of the whole creation, our little earth might be the garden-city that expands to bless the whole cosmos. I thought the sermon that wrapped up the Exodus series dealt with the idea very well.
But as for 1 Thess 4:17, I think that is contextually comparable to what happens in Acts 13 to Paul and Barnabas. The whole city came out to see the “gods,” but they didn’t plan on living out there.
And ‘monai’ (rooms/mansions) in John 14:2, 23 is not the word for home or house, but rather for what we would call a hotel room.
I know we see this differently, and I apologize if I come off as argumentative. I just wanted to offer potential counterexamples for the passages you presented.
April 28th, 2009 at 5:40 pm
Make that Acts 14, please! Sorry!
April 28th, 2009 at 7:14 pm
Nick, Patrick, I find myself siding somewhat with both of you. The destruction passage in II Peter uses the same word that was used a little earlier in the same book for how the earth was destroyed in the flood. There was still an earth after the flood, although one vastly changed. Granted, the elements melting does sound somewhat more devastating than “just” a worldwide flood.
I do think that this earth will be renewed, but I don’t think we will be confined here. We hae a whole universe out there. God is in all of it. Why shouldn’t we move through it?
No argument, just thoughts.
The whole premillenial thing has always seemed pretty silly to me. In the history of Christendom, it has occupied our thoughts only a small fraction of the time. We’re in one of those times now. I love many premillenial folks, but I don’t drink the Kool-Aid.
April 29th, 2009 at 2:08 pm
Though I myself am also a “pan-millenialist” I do find it fascinating that the idea of the earthly millenium has been debated since John first wrote Revelation – almost as if his disciples came up to him, asked and received a shrug as an answer.
Also interesting are the ideas that have fallen out of favor – Chiliasm for example. The belief that earth will have 6 days of work, a seventh day of rest and then an eighth day when all things begin in earnest. (Remember the thousand years as a day scale for God time.) Our early Fathers stole, er, borrowed that one from the rabbis and it was popular for many years. That is one of the reasons our now disused KJV’s have those dates at the top of the page. Many thanks to Bishop Ussher.
It is also fascinating that a church that nailed down the very definition of the trinity never actually turned this into an orthodoxy question.
April 29th, 2009 at 7:21 pm
Patrick,
Just listened to your This World Is Not My Home sermon — we still sing those songs *sigh*. And if they aren’t exactly inspiring for an “off-siter”
like you, imagine how thrilled I am when we sing Mansion Over The Hilltop! WHEE!
Thank you for a fair and balanced presentation (if only FoxNews could be as fair and balanced as your lesson just was). A lot of sermons on Heaven make me feel like I might as well be an unbeliever.
I think the “strangers and pilgrims” language you offer actually supports the eschatology I’ve offered, because it sounds to me like Jewish language alluding back to Abram’s life as a wanderer in a place promised to him but not yet given to him.
But as you rightly pointed out, most of my real argument is addressed to people who use their off-site belief as an excuse to escape kingdom work.
May 1st, 2009 at 12:07 am
Apocalyptic language – like that of Revelation or other books of prophecy – doesn’t always try to describe events literally. I think the prophecy against Assyria in Isaiah 30 is a good example of that language: “The LORD will cause men to hear his majestic voice and will make them see his arm coming down with raging anger and consuming fire, with cloudburst, thunderstorm and hail. The voice of the LORD will shatter Assyria; with his scepter he will strike them down.”
But what actually happened? In Isaiah 37: “Then the angel of the LORD went out and put to death a hundred and eighty-five thousand men in the Assyrian camp. When the people got up the next morning—there were all the dead bodies! So Sennacherib king of Assyria broke camp and withdrew. He returned to Nineveh and stayed there.” No mention of weather there.
They just woke up dead (as the KJV puts it)!
(In fact, it may have been a “wasting disease” from an earlier prophecy in Isaiah 10.)