A Discussion on the Kingdom of God, Eschatology, Millennialism,
Hermeneutics and a brief Historiographical note.
The Already-Not Yet framework allows us to rightly understand
the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy. By understanding the relationship
between This Age and the Age to Come we are able to grasp the nature of the
Kingdom of God.
The Kingdom of God is in Heaven where Christ sits on the
right hand of the throne of God. But because we are in Christ and He is in us,
that same Kingdom manifests itself on Earth...through the presence of the Holy
Spirit. The vehicle for the Spirit is within the hearts of believers. We live
in both realms at the same time. Our hearts are in heaven. That's our home,
that's where we lay up our treasures. Our desires, our ethics and values all
flow from an understanding that Heaven is our home.
Many prophecies speaking of the Day of Judgment were
typified in the Old Testament through such events as the Egyptian plagues, the
Angel of Death, the conquest of Canaan, the destruction of Jerusalem, the reign
of Antiochus Epiphanes and ultimately the destruction of the 2nd
Temple in 70AD. These prophesied events were literally fulfilled but because
the prophets often employ apocalyptic language the exact verbiage is often
obscured by symbolic and often poetic language. Don't misunderstand the event
happens but sometimes not in keeping with the exact minutiae because the
literal fulfillment of the event ultimately points to a spiritual truth that
will only be fully realized at the 2nd Coming.
For example Peter cites Joel's prophecy at Pentecost and
says it has been fulfilled. Did the moon turn to blood that day in Jerusalem?
No, but the events Peter was speaking of certainly point to the events spanning
from the crucifixion up to Pentecost. Could some of that language be applied to
the crucifixion? Yes. Were cosmic events taking place with the Resurrection,
Ascension and the coming of the Holy Spirit? Absolutely. The changes in the sky
whether actual or not reveal the spiritual reality of a great Divine labour, a
time of change, upheaval and transition.
Does that mean the verses are being 'spiritualized' away? I
don't think so. Those who insist on a literalistic hermeneutic (notice I said
literalistic not just literal) have a problem. They see the Joel passage as not
being fulfilled and yet Peter clearly said it was.
Can it find additional fulfillment? Yes. Christ's two
comings are sometimes mixed in the prophetic language. The prophet's
perspective from the distant past seems to often blend the two events. And in
one sense they are one. Christ did finish all and yet we are in a time between
the times, a period of longsuffering delay where the Church will grow, and grace
will be extended though the world will rage against it and seek to destroy all
that is holy. The beast will hunt down the true Church and seek to destroy it.
Though the Church is all but slain, she survives and rescues many souls from
the Judgment fire.
What we must not do is try to pick apart the passage and say
these verses specifically apply to these events and these verses come much
later. That would be a mistake and destroy the integrity of the prophetic
vision.
It's not a chronological code that we try to dissect. It's a
comprehensive unified vision that is equally true for the Church in 29AD as it
is in 2013.
Both the Dispensational and Postmillennial camps fall into
this error. Essentially they possess the same hermeneutic and make the same
fatal mistake. They give the Old Testament priority and read the New in light
of the Old. They take the Old passages as the standard and try and determine
where and to what degree the New Testament fulfills them.
Consequently they divide up passages in an artificial way.
Preterists who go too far in seeing all as fulfilled[i]
will try and drawn a line in places like Matthew 24 and say these verses apply
to AD70 and the destruction under Titus and the rest of the chapter concerns
the 2nd Coming.
This is a mistake. In one sense it was very much about the
year 70 and the Roman destruction, but that was a picture of the Final
Judgment. The nature of prophetic language is that the one event typifying the
other means the language can be blended and used interchangeably. This becomes
impossible if you're trying to read it in a literalistic fashion or force a
chronology on it.
What basis do I have to say this? Think of Malachi's
prophecy in the final verses of the book. He says Elijah will be sent before
the great and dreadful day of the Lord.
Matthew 11 teaches us that prophecy was fulfilled by the
coming of John the Baptist. Matthew 17 makes it even clearer. Was the Malachi
passage fulfilled? Yes. Literally? Yes. Literalistically? No.
Look again at Malachi 4. Was it fulfilled? At this point
some will want to divide the passage. Dispensationalists (ironically like the
Jews) are still looking for Elijah to appear before the end.
He's not coming again. The passage was fulfilled by John the
Baptist and the Coming of Christ.
Let me qualify that by saying from Malachi's perspective the
1st and 2nd Coming are one event. This doesn't mean
Malachi made a mistake. Theologically the Kingdom was established and in a
sense (I would argue) even the Last Judgment has been completed.
It is finished.
What we're waiting for is time (in this case the age of
delay) to catch up with (as it were) the eternal reality. Everything is paused.
God is being merciful and longsuffering. It’s already completed, but not yet
fully implemented.
It's almost like spilling a pitcher of water and it's
pouring across the table. You make a dam with your hands and hold it back...but
only for a second. Everything has already happened, you're just holding it
back.
The time is short. And that's true even if the 'time' extends
for 2000 years. That's not the Lord tarrying. That's mercy and longsuffering.
Christ's Judgment has already been proclaimed when He
defeated death on the cross on rose again. This was the proclamation to the
world. His testimony was ratified by signs and wonders as were the Apostles He
sent. The Holy Spirit bears witness of this.
The time is short. There's no warning. We don't have to wait
for the Jews to be back in the land. He comes as a thief in the night. It's
already finished. Again, this age is like an event that’s been paused. It's
just a matter of God saying....Now.
You can't divide the passage in Malachi. I recently heard
David Jeremiah on the radio slaughtering the book of Daniel. Dispensationalism
in misunderstanding the book places 2000 year gaps between verses. The final
beast which everyone agrees was Rome is for them waiting to reappear. The final
beast is still Rome...or to them that's been transformed into the European
Union. It’s funny they get very literalistic at times, but in this case and
certainly in their reading of the first three chapters of Revelation they
definitely spiritualize the passage. Reading the ‘Rapture’ into Revelation 4.1
is but another example of this.
The prophetic time clock (an invention of their own) stopped
in AD70 when the Jews lost the land. Once they were re-established in 1948 the
clock started again and by spiritualizing the fig tree mentioned in Matthew 24
they believe everything will end within a generation.
Of course the passage says nothing about the re-birth of
Israel and in fact other passages (Acts 1 for example) militate against this,
let alone the teaching of the epistles. Nevertheless they suddenly allegorize
this passage and derive modern Zionist Israel from it. And they've had to
revise things because after 65 years (as of May 14 2013) the so-called Rapture
hasn't happened. Some have looked to the land captured in 1967 as the start of
the 'clock' and thus they've granted themselves a bit more time.
Daniel certainly was dealing with the entire period from the
exile to the advent of Christ. We can clearly see Chaldean Babylon, Achaemenid
Persia, Alexander, the Hellenistic world (Ptolemies and Seleucids) and the rise
of Rome. There are hints again in prophetic terms of the future Kingdom which
can be interpreted in both a spiritual sense (pre-Eschaton) and even a somewhat
literal sense in light of the eschatological consummation, the 2nd
coming. Indeed at that point in the New Heavens and New Earth all will be holy.
At present it’s ‘not yet’.
Dispensationalists try to divide chapters and verses and end
up with tremendous chronological gaps which result in the turning of the text
on its head or at the very least are committed to such a complex if not
esoteric reading, it would never be detected by anyone just simply reading the
passage. It is a system highly dependent on its scholars, for no one sitting in
the pew would ever ‘divide’ the Scriptures in such a way.
The Scriptures end up being treated like a code. Their
hermeneutic is more akin to data mining then reading and grasping the message
of the passage.
[i] There are also Hyper-Preterists who literally believe
Jesus came back in AD70. That falls outside the bounds of orthodoxy and in fact
is condemned within the New Testament itself. Hymenaeus and Philetus taught the
resurrection (presumably the final resurrection which occurs at the 2nd
Coming) had already passed. This error was taught before the year 70 and thus
must have been in a slightly different form but Paul is pretty clear in his
condemnation. He says they've overthrown the faith.