Unraveling the End
A Biblical Synthesis of Competing Views
“Few doctrines unite and separate
Christians as much as eschatology...
...One of the most divisive elements in
recent Christian history.”
Christianity Today
February 6, 1987; p-1-I
2 Guidelines
1)
Sola Scriptura
2)
In Love
SUMMARY: 7 Reasons Why Vital
1) How much of the Bible is involved?
2) How much salvation do we currently have?
3) How much of the kingdom do we currently
have?
4) What do you do with the modern-day nation
of Israel?
5) It’s the focal point of the liberal-skeptic
attack on the Bible and Deity of Christ.
6) It makes a difference in your worldview
7) It makes a difference in your life and family
Four Abuses
1) Tendency to import or add things not
there in the text.
2) Inconsistently applying literal or symbolic
meanings.
3) Accepting a belief because it was simply
“told us.”
4) Stubborn resistance to change when
confronted with scriptural evidence.
Four Views
(in order of prominence)
#1 – Premillennial (Dispensational)
#2 – Amillennial
#3 – Postmillennial
#4 – Preterist
Unraveling the End
A Biblical Synthesis of Competing Views
#3 – Postmillennial View
Motivated our forefathers in the faith to
come to America . . .
• Not just to escape religious persecution.
• But to expand the kingdom of God.
• And help Christianize the world.
• Better and better as society was
transformed.
• Each Christian’s individual responsibility.
#3 – Postmillennial View
“discredited”
•
•
•
•
•
World War I and World War II
Atom Bomb
Threat of a nuclear Armageddon
Moral decline of society,
Rebirth of the nation of Israel (1948)
#3 – Postmillennial View
“. . . there used to be a group called
‘postmillennialists.’ . . . World War I greatly
disheartened this group and World War II
virtually wiped out this viewpoint. No selfrespecting scholar who looks at the world
conditions and the accelerating decline of
Christian influence today is a ‘postmillennialist.’”
Hal Lindsey,
The Late Great Planet Earth, 164-165.
#3 – Postmillennial View
• Are SURE – Christ’s Second Coming is
future (happens after the 1,000 years)
• Be personal, visible, bodily, and in great
glory ending history at the “end of time.”
• But will not occur any time soon.
• All three other Four Chief Moments are
also future.
#3 – Postmillennial View
•
•
•
•
•
Optimistic kingdom orientation.
Rarely, if ever, charged with heresy.
A lot of Scripture to back their view . . . for . . .
Earthly and historical success of the gospel.
Growth of the present and earthly kingdom of
God in this present age.
• Victory within history . . . in terms of converting a
sizeable portion of humankind to Christianity.
• All of which must take place BEFORE Christ can
return.
#3 – Postmillennial View
Scriptures
•
•
•
•
•
•
Genesis 1:28
Isaiah 9:6-7
Ezekiel 47:1-12
Daniel 2:35; 2:44; 7:27-28
Luke 1:33
Mark 1:15
#3 – Postmillennial View
Scriptures
Growth parables
• SEED scattered on the ground produces the
harvest (Mark 4:26-29).
• MUSTARD SEED into a tree (Matt. 13: 31-32;
Mark 4:30-32; Luke 13:18-19).
• YEAST throughout the dough (Matt. 13:33; Luke
13:20-21).
#3 – Postmillennial View
Scriptures
Great Commission (Matt. 28:18-20)
“All authority in heaven and on earth has
been given to me. Therefore go and make
disciples of all nations, baptizing them in
the name of the Father and of the Son and
of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to
obey everything I have commanded you.
And surely I will be with you always, to the
very end of the age.”
#3 – Postmillennial View
Scriptures
Matthew 24:14
“And this gospel of the kingdom will be
preached in the whole world as a
testimony to all nations, and then the end
will come.”
“During the past sixteen years I can
recollect only two occasions on which I
have heard sermons specifically devoted
to the theme of the Kingdom of God. . . . I
find this silence rather surprising because
it is universally agreed by New Testament
scholars that the central theme of the
teaching of Jesus was the Kingdom of
God.”
[quoting Dr. I. Howard Marshall of the University of Aberdeen]
Dallas Willard, The Divine Conspiracy, 59.
Supportive Quotes
• "the great omission . . . why . . . today's church [is] so weak"
Dallas Willard, The Divine Conspiracy, 40f.
• "reductionism of the gospel"
Darrell Guder, The Continuing Conversion of the
Church, xiiif.
• “the gospel we proclaim has been shrunk”
Robert Lynn, “Far as the curse is found” in
Breakpoint Worldview magazine, Oct. ’06, 14.
• “we have settled for a little gospel, a miniaturized version that cannot
address the robust problems of our world”
Scot McKnight, “The 8 Marks of a Robust Gospel” in
Christianity Today magazine, March 2008, 36.
Rediscovering the Kingdom
by Myles Munroe
1) “Fulfilling the assignment of preaching
the Kingdom is the key to the timing of the
return of Christ. Jesus said that the end
will come after the gospel of the Kingdom
is preached to all nations. . . . The fact that
Jesus has not come back yet is proof that
His assignment, which He delegated to
His followers in every generation, has not
yet been fulfilled.”
Rediscovering the Kingdom
by Myles Munroe
2) “How many churches today are actively
and conscientiously preaching the gospel
of . . . . the Kingdom of God? Not just any
message will do. . . . Jesus will return only
when the message of the Kingdom has
been proclaimed in all the earth, and that
proclamation is the Church’s
responsibility.”
Rediscovering the Kingdom
by Myles Munroe
3) “[In] Africa, many African believers have
never heard the gospel of the Kingdom of
God. They know Jesus, but they have
never been taught about their status and
rights as sons and daughters of God and
citizens and heirs of His Kingdom. . . .
Even in Europe and the West . . . few
people have heard the gospel of the
Kingdom. [Yet] Many have heard about
Jesus. . . .”
Rediscovering the Kingdom
by Myles Munroe
4) [Some] “have heard the wrong message
of the Kingdom. . . . that is perhaps the
most serious [deficiency] of all. . . . The
gospel of the Kingdom of God . . . must be
carefully defined so that there are no
ambiguities. . . .”
Rediscovering the Kingdom
by Myles Munroe
5) “One of the reasons the Church is not
more effective at reaching the nations is
because we are not preaching the
message they need to hear. . . .
Unfortunately many in the Church have
discovered the King but they have no clue
about the Kingdom that He came to bring
to mankind.”
Rediscovering the Kingdom
by Myles Munroe
6) “So much time today we get the message wrong by
preaching the good news of heaven. The two are not
the same. We tell people to put their faith in Jesus for
salvation and then we focus on heaven as our goal and
destination. Jesus never preached heaven. The
disciples never preached heaven, and neither should we.
There may be a lot of appeal to the idea of going to
heaven . . . but people struggling with daily life on earth .
. . . need to hear the good news of the Kingdom of
heaven—the rule of God has come to earth and all can
experience the reality of that world.”
Rediscovering the Kingdom
by Myles Munroe
7) “People everywhere are looking for the
Kingdom, even if they don’t recognize it by
that name. . . . “People are not looking for
religion; they are looking for power, and
the Kingdom offers power. . . . If we
preach the gospel of the Kingdom of God,
people will respond.”
Rediscovering the Kingdom
by Myles Munroe
8) “When we preach Christ without
preaching also about the Kingdom of God,
we do people a great disservice. . . . Jesus
preached the Kingdom, but the Church
preaches so many other things rather than
the Kingdom. . . . It’s the lost message of
Jesus that needs to be resurrected in our
times.”
Rediscovering the Kingdom
by Myles Munroe
9) “The gospel of the Kingdom is the only true
gospel. Anything else we preach is not the true
gospel, or at least, not the complete gospel.
Preaching about Jesus Christ is a vital and
essential part of preaching the gospel of the
Kingdom, because He is our way into the
Kingdom. Just because we place our faith in
Christ, however, does not mean that we
automatically understand either what it means to
be a citizen of the Kingdom or how to live like
one.”
Rediscovering the Kingdom
by Myles Munroe
10) “Every one of the 7 billion people on planet
earth is seeking the Kingdom of God, which is
their ultimate fulfillment. Every religion and
activity of mankind is man’s attempt to find the
Kingdom. It is the pearl that out-values all
pearls, and the only treasure that is worth all the
other treasures of life. The Kingdom is life itself.
. . . [and] The king is the central component of a
kingdom and embodies the essence of the
kingdom.”
#3 – Postmillennial View
Demise
1) Negative world events.
2) Absorbed into the social gospel
movement.
3) Charges of being “triumphalistic.”
4) A small band of modern-day
postmillennial scholars fight back.
Onward, Christian Soldiers
(1865)
Onward, Christian soldiers, marching as to war,
With the cross of Jesus going on before.
Christ, the royal Master, leads against the foe;
Forward into battle see His banners go!
At the sign of triumph Satan’s host doth flee;
On then, Christian soldiers, on to victory!
Hell’s foundations quiver at the shout of praise;
Brothers lift your voices, loud your anthems
raise.
Stand Up, Stand Up for Jesus
(1858)
Stand up, stand up for Jesus,
Ye soldiers of the cross,
Lift high His royal banner,
It must not suffer loss;
From victory unto victory His army shall He lead,
Till every foe is vanquished
And Christ is Lord indeed.
Joy to the World!
(1719)
(1) Joy to the world, the Lord is come!
Let earth receive her King;
Let every heart prepare Him room,
And heaven and nature sing,
And heaven and nature sing,
And heaven, and heaven, and nature sing.
Joy to the World!
(1719)
(2) Joy to the world, the Savior reigns!
Let men their songs employ;
While fields and floods, rocks, hills and plains
Repeat the sounding joy,
Repeat the sounding joy,
Repeat, repeat, the sounding joy.
Joy to the World!
(1719)
(3) No more let sins and sorrows grow,
Nor thorns infest the ground;
He comes to make His blessings flow
Far as the curse is found,
Far as the curse is found,
Far as, far as, the curse is found.
Joy to the World!
(1719)
(4) He rules the world with truth and grace,
And makes the nations prove
The glories of His righteousness,
And wonders of His love,
And wonders of His love,
And wonders, wonders, of His love.
???
For the darkness shall turn to dawning,
And the dawning to noonday bright,
And Christ’s great kingdom shall come to earth,
The kingdom of peace and light.
We’ve a Story to Tell to the Nations
(1896)
“the most serious error in much of the
current ‘prophetic’ teaching is the claim
that the future of Christendom is to be
read not in terms of revival and victory, but
of growing impotence and apostasy.”
Oswald T. Allis, in Foreword to
Roderick Campbell, Israel and the New
Covenant, ix.
#3 – Postmillennial View
The bottom line for why postmillennialists
think their view is hated so much
nowadays is this:
Their view of exercising “dominion in
history . . . . teaches responsibility.”
Kenneth L. Gentry, Jr.,
He Shall Have Dominion, back cover.
#3 – Postmillennial View
•
•
•
•
Duration of the Millennium
Some say figuratively.
Lasts longer than a literal thousand years.
We are living in it now.
Not something to come cataclysmically at
some future time.
#3 – Postmillennial View
Duration of the Millennium
• Others believe we are not now living in the
millennium.
• See it as a special and future “golden age”
of peace and prosperity, of gospel
success, and the triumph of good over
evil.
• May or may not be a literal thousand years
in length.
#3 – Postmillennial View
End of the Millennium
• The end of time and the end of history
coming after the millennium at Christ’s
Second Coming.
• Proceeded by a brief period of apostasy
and conflict between Christian and evil
forces . . .
• Headed up by the end-time antichrist.
#3 – Postmillennial View
•
•
•
•
•
•
End of the Millennium
Christ taking his Church to be with Him.
The resurrection of the righteous and the
wicked.
An end to all earthly existence and to the earth
itself.
The final judgment.
The beginning of “the eternal state.”
A totally new or renewed earth—“the new
heavens and new earth.”
“This does not mean that there ever will be a
time on this earth when every person will be a
Christian, or that all sin will be abolished. But it
does mean that evil in all its many forms
eventually will be reduced to negligible
proportions, that Christian principles will be the
rule, not the exception, and that Christ will return
to a truly Christianized world.”
Loraine Boettner, The Millennium, 14.
C.S. Lewis condemn it as:
• “the idea which here shuts out the Second
Coming from our minds.”
• “Idea for the world slowly ripening to
perfection” as “a myth . . . which distracts
us from our real duties and our real
interest.”
C.S. Lewis, “The World’s Last Night”
(1960), in The Essential C.S. Lewis,
Lyle W. Dorsett, ed., 388.
#3 – Postmillennial View
Many Comings of Christ
• Includes his “return in judgment” coming in
A.D. 70.
• His future final coming in glory and
consummation at the end of time.
• In the meantime and in between there
have been, are, and will be many comings
of Christ in various ways.
#3 – Postmillennial View
One More Big Problem Re: Matt. 24:14
• According to the Bible itself, the gospel of the
kingdom was preached to all nations and to the
world in that 1st century.
Col 1:6, 23
Rom. 1:8; 10:18; 16:26;
Acts 1:8 2:5; 24:5
Luke 2:1
• The Greek word “world” is oikoumene, meaning
“land . . . specifically the Roman Empire.
• Jesus’ prerequisite is past in fulfillment and was
satisfied over 1900 years ago.
#4 – Preterist View
• The least known.
• But now the chief recipient of heresy
charges.
• The easiest view to present.
• But perhaps the hardest to believe.
#4 – Preterist View
• Preterist is derived from the Latin word
praeter—which means “past.”
• Used in verb forms (past tense).
• In eschatology it means “past in
fulfillment.”
#4 – Preterist View
Two Basic Types:
• Full preterists
• Partial preterists.
#4 – Full Preterist View
• All Four Chief Moments are past in fulfillment.
• During the Jewish-Roman War of A.D. 66-70.
• Sure this was Christ’s Second Coming and
Return.
• A non-visible coming in judgment.
• But it was personal and glorious.
• No future coming or comings of Jesus following
A.D. 70.
Criticisms
• “the position sounds so bizarre that some may
wonder if it seriously deserves to be refuted.”
• . . . of sacrificing “the plain sense of every other
prophecy about the return of Christ and endtimes events.”
• “heresy of the worst stripe”
• “sub-Christian heresy.”
• “is currently overthrowing the faith of many.”
John MacArthur,
The Second Coming, 11, 13, 223.
Critical Assessment
• “the debate is shaping up as a showdown
between preterism and futurism.”
Thomas Ice and Kenneth L. Gentry, Jr.,
The Great Tribulation: Past or Future?, 6.
• “early forms of preterism were mild and
underdeveloped by today’s standards.”
Thomas Ice & Timothy Demy,
When the Trumpet Sounds, 14.
‘9.5 Theses’
1. Everything Jesus said would happen,
happened exactly as and when He said it
would—within the lifetime of his
contemporaries.
2. Everything every New Testament writer
expected to happen, happened exactly as and
when they expected it would—within their
lifetime—as they were guided into all truth and
told the things that were to come by the Holy
Spirit (John 16:13).
‘9.5 Theses’
3. Scholars across a broad spectrum are in
general agreement that this is exactly how
every NT writer and the early Church
understood Jesus’ words. If they were wrong
on something this important, how can we trust
them to have conveyed other aspects of the
faith accurately, such as the requirements for
salvation?
‘9.5 Theses’
4. No inspired NT writer, writing twenty or more
years later, ever corrected their Holy-Spiritguided understanding and fulfillment
expectations (John 16:13). Neither should we.
Instead, they intensified their language . . . .
5. Partial fulfillment is not satisfactory. 3 out of
5, 7 out of 10, etc., won’t work. Partial does
not pass the test of a true prophet (Deut.
18:18-22). Again, Jesus time-restricted all of
his end-time predictions to occur within the 1stcentury time frame.
‘9.5 Theses’
6. God is faithful (2 Pet. 3:9) and “not a man that
he should lie” (Num. 23:19). Faithfulness means
not only doing what was promised, but also
doing it when it was promised.
‘9.5 Theses’
7. 1st-century, fulfillment expectations were the
correct ones and everything happened, right on
time—no gaps, no gimmicks, no interruptions,
no postponements, no delays, no exegetical
gymnastics, and no changing the meaning of
commonly used and normally understood words.
Such manipulative devices have only given
liberals and skeptics a foothold to discredit
Christ’s Deity and the inerrancy of Scripture.
‘9.5 Theses’
8. What needs adjusting is our understanding of
both the time and nature of fulfillment, and not
manipulation of the time factor to conform to
our popular, futuristic, and delay expectations.
9. The kingdom of God was the central
teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ, is a present
but greatly under-realized reality, and must
again become the central teaching of his
Church.
‘9.5 Theses’
9.5 We have been guilty of proclaiming a half-truth—a partially
delivered faith to the world and to fellow Christians. We must repent
and earnestly “contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to
the saints” (Jude 3).
If Christianity has been as effective as it has by proclaiming that
Jesus Christ, the Messiah, came, died for our sins, bodily arose from
the dead, and ascended to Heaven “at just the right time” (Rom. 5:6;
Dan. 9:24-27), how much more effective might it be if we started
preaching, teaching, and practicing the whole truth—i.e., a faith in
which everything else also happened “at just the right time,” exactly
as and when Jesus said it would and every NT writer expected
(John 16:13). Dare we continue to settle for less?
#4 – Preterist View
The Three Biggest Problems
1) “I just can’t believe everything is fulfilled
and over.”
2) “My eyes aren’t seeing what these words
are saying!”
3) If all was fulfilled, where’s our hope?
#4 – Preterist View
“Great Service”
“The first is the time-frame references of the
New Testament regarding eschatological
prophecy. The preterist is a sentinel standing
guard against frivolous and superficial attempts
to downplay or explain away the force of these
references.”
R.C. Sproul,
The Last Days According to Jesus, 202-203.
#4 – Preterist View
“Great Service”
“The second major issue is the destruction of Jerusalem.
This event certainly spelled the end of a crucial
redemptive-historical epoch. It must be viewed as the
end of some age. It also represents a significant
visitation of the Lord in judgment and a vitally important
‘day of the Lord.’ Whether this was the only day of the
Lord about which Scripture speaks remains a major point
of controversy among preterists.”
R.C. Sproul,
The Last Days According to Jesus, 202-203.
#4 – Partial Preterist View
• For some it means – some or most endtime prophecies were fulfilled, but not all.
• For others it means – all or most were
fulfilled in some sense but and await a
more complete, final, or ultimate fulfillment
when the Lord returns in the future at the
“end of time.”
“I am convinced that the substance of the Olivet
Discourse as fulfilled in A.D. 70 and that the bulk of
Revelation was likewise fulfilled in that timeframe. . . .
“While partial preterists acknowledge that in the
destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70 was a parousia or
coming of Christ, they maintain that it was not the
parousia. That is, the coming of Christ in A.D. 70 was a
coming in judgment on the Jewish nation, indicating the
end of the Jewish age and the fulfillment of a day of the
Lord, Jesus really did come in judgment at this time,
fulfilling his prophecy in the Olivet Discourse. But this
was not the final or ultimate coming of Christ. . . . [which
will be] universal in scope and significance. It will come .
. . at the end of human history as we know it. It will be,
not merely a day of the Lord, but the final and ultimate
day of the Lord.”
R.C. Sproul, The Last Days According to Jesus, 158.
“The modern revival of preterism represents an
interesting and important paradigm shift in eschatology.
The advantage of preterism is that is ‘saves the
phenomena’ of the New Testament time-frame
references; it interprets biblical prophecy according to
the images used in Scripture itself; and it offers a
framework for consistent interpretation of the difficult
apocalyptic literature of the Bible, such as that found in
Daniel and Revelation....
Serious study and dialogue are needed if we are to
reach agreement as to how far preterism is to go and
what remains for the hope of the church’s and the
cosmos’ future in the full plan of redemptive history.”
R.C. Sproul, in Foreword, And It Came To Pass:
The Third Annual C.E.F. Symposium: Preterism, vii.
Four Views
(in order of prominence)
#1 – Premillennial (Dispensational)
#2 – Amillennial
#3 – Postmillennial
#4 – Preterist
Recap – 2 Questions
1) How much end-time prophecy was
relevant to his original audience?
• Premillennialists, “none of it” or “little of
it” was.
• Amillennialists, “some of it” was.
• Postmillennialists, “most of it” was.
• Preterists, “all of it” was relevant and
fulfilled, right on time.
• What do you say?
Recap – 2 Questions
2) Who’s right?
• Premillennialists – the very-soon future
fulfillment of all things.
• Amillennialists – some past partial fulfillment
but mostly future fulfillment whose time we
cannot know.
• Postmillennialists – a lot of past partial
fulfillment but significant far-away future
fulfillment.
• Preterists – past fulfillment of all things.
• What do you think?
Early Church Fathers
(2nd-4th centuries)
• At least four subscribed to a preterist (past
fulfillment) understanding that . . .
• At least some of Jesus’ “all these things”
(Mt. 24:34) had indeed occurred within the
time span Jesus had specified.
• i.e., “this generation.”
Eusebius – a preterist view
“It is fitting to add to these accounts the true
prediction of our Saviour in which he foretold
these events . . . .’For there shall be great
tribulation . . . .’ These things took place in this
manner, in the second year of the reign of
Vespasian [A.D. 70], in accordance to the
prophecies of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ
. . . .”
Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, Book 3, Ch.7,
in The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 1, 141.
Eusebius – a preterist view
“. . . the abomination of desolation,
proclaimed by the prophets [Dan. 9:27],
stood in the very temple of God . . . which
was now awaiting its total destruction by
fire.”
Ibid, Book 3, Ch.5., 138.
Eusebius – a preterist view
“Moses had foretold this very thing and in due
course Christ sojourned in this life, and the
teaching of the new covenant was borne to all
nations, and at once the Romans besieged
Jerusalem and destroyed it and the Temple
there. At once the whole of the Mosaic law was
abolished, with all that remained of the Old
Covenant….”
Eusebius, Proof of the Gospel, Book. I, Ch. 6, 35.
Eusebius – a preterist view
Recorded that in obedience to the Lord’s Olivet
Discourse instructions, 1st-century Christians
fled from Jerusalem to Pella in Transjordan
around A.D. 68 after the first siege and before
the second one,(1) . . . . and no Christians were
trapped and destroyed in the siege of Jerusalem
which concluded in A.D.70.(2)
(1) Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, Book III, V. 86, 138.
(2) Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, Book 3, Ch. 5, 138.
Eusebius – a preterist view
“For so it was prophesied concerning the destruction of
the royal glory of the Jewish nation . . . . Yea, in return for
their insults to the Lord who thus prophesied, there has
not failed for them lamentation, mourning and wailing.
And it was only after our Saviour came . . . . laying their
Temple low, and driving them from their country, to serve
their enemies in a hostile land . . . .”
Eusebius, W.J. Ferrar, ed., The Proof of the Gospel,
Book 7, Ch. 4, 144, 146 – on Zechariah 14:1-5.
Eusebius – a preterist view
“When, then, we see what was of old foretold for the
nations fulfilled in our own day, and when the
lamentation and wailing that was predicted for the Jews,
and the burning of the Temple and its utter destruction,
can also be seen even now to have occurred according
to the prediction, surely we must also agree that the King
who was prophesied, the Christ of God, has come, since
the signs of His coming have been shewn in each
instance I have treated to have been clearly fulfilled.”
Ibid., 147.
Clement of Alexandria
– a preterist view
“‘ . . . in the one week,’ was He Lord. The half of
the week Nero held sway, and in the holy city
Jerusalem placed the abomination; and in the
half of the week he was taken away, and Otho,
and Galba, and Vitallus. And Vespasian rose to
the supreme power, and destroyed Jerusalem,
and desolated the holy place.”
Clement of Alexandria, The Stromata, or Miscellanies,
Vol. 2, Book 1, in The Ante-Nicene Fathers, 329.
Athanasius – a preterist view
“And Jerusalem is to stand till his coming, and thenceforth, prophet
and vision cease in Israel…And this was why Jerusalem stood till
thennamely that there they might be exercised in the types as a
preparation for the reality…but from that time forth all prophecy is
sealed and the city and temple taken, why are they so irreligious and
so perverse as to see what has happened, and yet to deny Christ,
Who has brought it all to pass? …What then has not come to pass,
that the Christ must do? What is left unfulfilled, that the Jews should
now disbelieve with impunity?”
Athanasius, Incarnation of the Word,
Section 39 Verse 3, Section 40 Verses 1-7 in
The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, 57-58.