There are certain texts that are familiar or at least ought to be. They teach us the place in history occupied by the New Testament or, more precisely, the new covenant economy (Gal. 4:4; Heb. 9:26; 1 Cor. 10:11). The New Testament era is ‘the fulness of the time’, ‘the consummation of the ages’, ‘the end of the ages’, the consummating era of this world’s history. Correlative with this characterization is ‘the last days’ (Acts 2:17; Heb. 1:2; 1 John 2:18). These began with the coming of Christ: So the world period is the last days.
This implies ages of this world’s history that were not the last days; they were prior, preparatory, anticipatory. The last days are characterized by two comings, notable, unprecedented, indeed astounding—the coming into the world of the Son of God and the Spirit of God. In order to accentuate the marvel of these comings we must say that God came into the world, first in the person of the Son and then in the person of the Holy Spirit. They came by radically different modes and for different functions. But both are spoken of as comings and they are both epochal events. These comings not only introduce and characterize the last days; they create or constitute it. —John Murray, The Unity of the Old and New Testaments
Tag: Eschatology
Further Up and Further In (Exodus 40)
Exodus is like climbing a mountain, whereupon coming up through the mist and cloud, expecting to arrive at the summit, you discover yet another mountain remains to be climbed. How sad that many climb only through the first mist and soon give up for exhaustion or for boredom. By God’s grace one presses on through the first summit of God’s ten wonders of judgment. From there you behold intimidating Sinai, but sure of your mediator Jesus Christ, you press upward and behold greater glories. Still, God called his children to go further up with Moses, to the heavenly heights to behold the tabernacle as a revelation of heavenly truths.
On the other side, after a laborious but worthwhile climb, you come to the consummation of the construction of this tent, anticipating the greatest sight of glory yet.
The filling of the tabernacle is the climactic glory of Exodus; the supreme manifestation of God’s glory in this epic book. Israel has seen the Nile turned to blood, the Egyptian’s livestock die of plague, hail decimate her crops, darkness cover their land, and their firstborn die. She’s seen the Red Sea split and walked through it. She ate manna in the wilderness and water from the rock. She has seen Sinai covered in smoke and fire, trembling beneath the glory of God—but this surpasses all she’s seen. Here is how you know that this is the supreme manifestation of God’s glory—Moses, who spoke with God at the burning bush, Moses, through whom God’s ten wonders came, Moses, who split the river and struck the rock, Moses, who ascended Sinai and beheld God’s glory and spoke with God as a man speaks to his friend—this Moses couldn’t enter the tent for the glory of God (Exodus 40:35). One commentator says that the tabernacle thus becomes “a miniature portable Sinai [MacKay].” It may be miniature as to physical size but it is bigger in glory.
Exodus ends on this climax without consummation or resolution. It ends on a to be continued. There are heights yet to climb. Exodus is clearly part of a multi-volume work with Leviticus picking up where Exodus leaves off. Yes, even with all five volumes of the Pentateuch, Moses didn’t get to finish. The same cloud of glory that dwells in Israel’s midst will guide and protect them bringing them to the promised land, and thus into fuller enjoyment of Yahweh’s covenant with them. Moses didn’t write that chapter, because he didn’t experience it, but this isn’t to say he missed the height of heights.
God, by His Spirit is still leading his people home, and He will not forsake any of us, bringing us all to the height of heights, Mount Zion, the new Jerusalem, where all is temple, illuminated by the glory of God.
Enjoying the Sabbath (Exodus 20:8–11)
Altogether three reasons were given to Israel for remembering the Sabbath. The first, given here, is rooted in creation.
For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy (Exodus 20:11 ESV).
When Moses calls the next generation to covenant renewal and restates this command, much remains the same, but the grounds are significantly different.
You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the LORD your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore the LORD your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day (Deuteronomy 5:15 ESV).
Ultimately, I believe, that these two reasons have one unifying reason, and a hint as to how this can be is found in a yet third basis given for Sabbath remembrance.
You are to speak to the people of Israel and say, ‘Above all you shall keep my Sabbaths, for this is a sign between me and you throughout your generations, that you may know that I, the LORD, sanctify you (Exodus 31:13 ESV).’
Like circumcision and the Passover, the Sabbath is a perpetual sign throughout their generations, of His covenant. Jesus comes as the fulfillment of the law. Because of Him circumcision gives way to baptism (Colossians 2:11–13), the Passover blooms into the Lord’s Supper (Luke 22:14–18ff), and the Sabbath, well, what becomes of the Sabbath? We’re clearly commanded to baptize and to remember the Supper, but no command is given concerning the Sabbath, nor the Lord’s day. Rather, we’re told:
One person esteems one day as better than another, while another esteems all days alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. The one who observes the day, observes it in honor of the Lord (Romans 14:5–6 ESV).
Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ (Colossians 2:16–17 ESV).
What happens to the Sabbath? Jesus declares Himself Lord of the Sabbath in Matthew 12. Just prior to this Matthew records these words, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light (Matthew 11:28–30 ESV).” Hebrews 4 speaks of entering God’s rest by faith, the rest of God that He had once He had finished from His works.
Because of Jesus, our work is finished, competed perfectly for us, and now we rest. What happens to the Sabbath? We haven’t abandoned it. We’ve entered more fully into it—in Jesus. Because of His redemption, a new day has dawned, a resurrection day, a day of new creation, a day of rest.
In short the physical rest of the Old Testament Sabbath has become the salvation rest of the true Sabbath. Believers In Christ can now live in God’s Sabbath that has already dawned. Jesus’ working to accomplish this superseded the Old Testament Sabbath (John 5:17) and so does the doing of God’s work that He now requires of people—believing in the one God has sent (John 6:28, 29). In fact the Sabbath keeping now demanded is the cessation from reliance on one’s own works (Heb. 4:9, 10). —A.T. Lincoln
Reading Backwards for Greater Comprehension (Exodus 2:1–25)
The immediate audience Moses intended Exodus for wasn’t reading it blind. They experienced the events blind, but now, through this narrative, they are allowed to revisit their recent history and see things as they really were. Like reading a great novel a second time, they’re able to see images, metaphors, symbols, and foreshadowing they missed because now they know the ending. “The providence of God,” says John Flavel, “is like Hebrew words—it can only be read backwards.”
The people of Israel are crying out to God for deliverance. God has already raised up the deliverer, from the Levites, who will act as their mediator, and though whom they will receive instructions concerning a tent. Israel will be delivered from the bondage of building store cities for Pharaoh, to the freedom of building a tabernacle for God, with the spoils of His victory, so that He as their king might dwell in their midst.
By faith, we read this story not only looking back, but looking forward. The true and better Moses has come. He has defeated the serpent tyrant and released us from our bitter bondage to sin and death. We’re sojourners, but, we can be sure that He will lead us all the way home. We know the ending, but one day, when this present age is past, we’ll read backwards with even greater clarity and see that God never forgot His covenant and we will ask our Father to tell the story again and again.
The Supper Tastes Like Three Tenses (Luke 22:14–20)
The Lord’s Supper is a spring loaded mechanism; the backward thrust is meant to propel us forward. In Luke’s account, before Jesus once tells us to do this in remembrance He has twice given reason to anticipate: the future wedding feast when He will again eat bread and drink wine with His bride (Luke 22:16, 18; cf. Revelation 19:6–9; Isaiah 25:6–9). Matthew and Mark neither one tell us to remember, but they do tell us to anticipate (Matthew 26:29; Mark 14:25). If your remembering doesn’t lead to anticipating, your not remembering very well.
Sometimes it’s said that at the Last Supper the disciples looked forward, while in the Lord’s Supper we look backward. As regards Christ’s atoning death this is spot on, but that’s not everything. In the Supper they were to look forward to a day that is beyond our own, yet, that is here now. Luke uniquely tells us that Jesus will not eat the Passover again until it is fulfilled in the Kingdom of God (Luke 22:15–16). The Lord’s Supper is the fulfillment of the Passover, but it is a partial fulfillment. When we partake of the Supper, we are eating the future. The Lord’s Supper is the future fulfillment of the Passover, breaking into the present: God and man, sitting at a table, dining together (Luke 13:29–30).
The Lord’s Supper tells us that this feast will be, and it tells us how this feast will be. The answer to how this feast will be is what this feast is. Man will eat with God, because He has eaten of God. Stephen Charnock succinctly summarized the succulence of Supper saying, “A feast with God is great, but a feast on God is greater.” This is the marrow of the Supper that we partake of now by faith, the marrow of the eternal feast that has broken into the present.
The Sheep’s Wool (Matthew 25:31-46)
When Jesus separates the sheep and the goats pronouncing judgment upon them, neither one is shocked by the destination, but the reasoning given. The sheep are blessed for the ministered to Jesus in His need, whereas the goats are cursed because they failed. But we shouldn’t mistake this for saying the sheep merited their destination.
The decisive grounds upon which the sheep and goats are divided is that one is comprised of sheep and the other of goats. The deeds of mercy act as an outer mark that identifies the sheep. They are the evidence, not the grounds. Some similar language about those who eat sheep may help.
Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will recognize them by their fruits. —Matthew 7:15-20 (ESV)
The eating of sheep does not make one a wolf; the being a wolf means an appetite for sheep. The bearing of good fruit does not make one a good tree; the being a good tree means bearing good fruit.
The King/Shepherd says, “All sheep may enter,” and then He turns to you and says, “Come, for you are covered with wool.” The wool didn’t make you a sheep. The last thing any sheep will say on that day is, “I got in by the wool on my baaack, baaack, baaack. Yes this wool, I did it.” If so, an interrogation would commence. “Were you always a sheep? Who then transformed you into a sheep? Who gave you the only food, and water (the Spirit and the Word) that then can cause such wool to grow? Who gave you health and life so that the wool could grow? Who protected you and led you beside still waters so that the wool could grow?” The Shepherd gets all the credit. When He says, “Come for you are full of wool,” He is saying, “Look at what I did. See. This one is mine.”
What is the distinctive wool specifically mentioned here are a mark of those who are the Good Shpeherd’s? Love for the church. Shouldn’t we as Christians love all who are destitute? Certainly. Is that the point of this text. By no means. “The least of these,” are “my [Jesus’] brothers.” This language echoes Matthew 10:40-42 and Matthew 18 where the “little ones,” are Jesus’ little ones, His disciples.
One evangelical pastor wrote a popular book titled They Love Jesus but Not the Church. He had some legitimate criticisms of the church, but he missed it with his title. You cannot love Jesus and not love the church. If you fail to love the church, you do not love Jesus. You are a goat.
Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. …If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother. —1 John 4:7-8, 20-21
Getting all Dressed up for Nothing (Matthew 25:1-13)
“Of course that guy is out,” we say of the wicked servant (Matthew 24:48-51), but the ten virgins cause us to think much more soberly. They cause us to think like the disciples. When Jesus warned that one of them would betray Him, none responded, “I know, that guy!” Instead they asked, “Is it I?” When we look at the five foolish virgins we are graciously startled that “be ready,” isn’t a message for them. “Watch!” isn’t a command for outsiders, but a message for those “inside” the church, for those who think they will be inside the feast, for those who think they are inside the ark of Christ protected from the flood waters of God’s wrath.
The wicked slave played a slave of the master, but proved himself to be an enemy. The wicked slave despises Jesus’ coming, whereas foolish virgins are deceived concerning his coming. The veneer is different, but the same kind of rotten wood meant for the fire underlies both. The wicked don’t sing, “We’ll Work till Jesus Comes,” but drunkenly belt, “We’ll Party while Jesus Is Gone.” They don’t so much believe in Jesus’ return as His absence. The virgins keep themselves pure for the party. They don’t party with the drunkards like the wicked slave, but they don’t party for the wrong reasons. Underneath all the religiosity is still a heart that loves something else.
To illustrate let’s switch back from the wedding entourage to the bride herself, for that is what the ten virgins show us. Theologians speak of the visible and invisible church. The visible church is the church as man sees it, wheat and tares. The invisible church is the church as God sees it. In other words, there is the church as she appears, and the church as she truly is. The reasons we have ten virgins instead of one bride is to prevent this metaphor from making the bridegroom sinful by polygamy, or from getting weird with a bride with split personalities and then further from being gruesome as the bridegroom splits his bride in two keeping only the desirable part. Jesus has one true bride and some girls are getting all dressed up for nothing. Many a bride have been ecstatic on their wedding day for it to be borne out later that their joy had nothing to do with the bridegroom. She loved the idea of herself of being married, or of stability, or of status, or an idea of her husband that was not her husband. But Jesus’ true bride is no gold digger, no trophy-husband seeker, no self-glorifying status seeker. She does not think that the day of His return is her day, but rejoices that it is all about Him.
The Bridegroom is no fool. Fools can fool others, even themselves, but they cannot fool Him.
While the Teacher is Out (Matthew 24:36-51)
Just like Noah’s days, right? Well, yes, and no. Chicken Little-prophecy pastor says things will be deplorable, just like in Noah’s time, when Jesus returns. But Jesus does not say they were gluttonously eating, drinking till sloshed, and giving in homosexual marriage. They were simply eating, drinking, and marrying. These are normal things, existence things, life things. These are things one does when they don’t expect the apocalypse to knock on their door tomorrow. The point isn’t the evil of Noah’s times, but the unexpectedness. The point of Matthew 24:36-25:30 isn’t to give you a sign (evil days) so that you can know when Jesus will return. The point is to give you a slap in the face to wake you from your slumber so that you live as though that Jesus will return.
Evangelical Christians confess Jesus’ coming, but do they believe it? Though everyone of us falls into slumber, where is the emphasis? The wicked slave didn’t doubt the master’s return, but he believes in his delay. Many believe in Jesus’ delay, not Jesus’ return, and there is a mammoth difference between the two. One loves, one hates. The Rabbi is out of the room. Do you act as one who loves His absence or His presence?
Old Testament Ears (Matthew 24:15-35)
Eschatologically I am an amillennialist and partial preterist. Is that clear enough? My point exactly. To understand, you have to know the language behind the language. Have you ever had a foreign exchange student give you a puzzled look when you say that something is cool? They know what cool means, but they don’t know what cool means. They don’t know the language behind the language.
This is why I feel many go awry when looking at Biblical prophecy. They read backwards from the 21st century instead of forwards from the 1st century. They listen with Left Behind ears more than Old Testament ears. Apocalyptic literature is drenched and dripping with imagery and metaphors from the ocean of the Old Testament. I’m afraid that we are reading the New Testament with the wrong code key.
Jasper Fforde has written a series of books about a British literary detective set in a futuristic 1980’s time period. Someone has made a means to enter your favorite books. A villain now posses this technology and is capturing beloved characters. If the character is captured from a first edition, he disappears from all subsequent editions. The books are fun, anyone can understand them, but they are much more enjoyable if you have read the books mentioned.
I don’t so much want to labor to convince you of my eschatological position (eschatology is the study of last things), as of my hermeneutic (hermeneutics is the science/art of interpreting texts) that brought me to that position. The first rule of hermeneutics is that Scripture interprets Scripture. This means that the best way to read your Bible, is to read your Bible—again, and again, and again, and again. When you do this, you are much more likely to hear phrases like, “the abomination of desolation (cf. Daniel 11:31),” and “the sun will be darkened (cf. Isaiah 13:9-10),” and “coming on the clouds, (Daniel 7:13-14),” the way the Bible intends you to. Superior to any longing for you to agree with my position, is that it be said of both of us what C.H. Spurgeon said of John Bunyan:
Oh, that you and I might get into the very heart of the Word of God, and get that Word into ourselves! As I have seen the silkworm eat into the leaf, and consume it, so ought we to do with the Word of the Lord—not crawl over its surface, but eat right into it till we have taken it into our inmost parts. It is idle merely to let the eye glance over the words, or to recollect the poetical expressions, or the historic facts; but it is blessed to eat into the very soul of the Bible until, at last, you come to talk in Scriptural language, and your very style is fashioned upon Scripture models, and, what is better still, your spirit is flavored with the words of the Lord.
I would quote John Bunyan as an instance of what I mean. Read anything of his, and you will see that it is almost like the reading the Bible itself. He had read it till his very soul was saturated with Scripture; and, though his writings are charmingly full of poetry, yet he cannot give us his Pilgrim’s Progress—that sweetest of all prose poems — without continually making us feel and say, ‘Why, this man is a living Bible!’ Prick him anywhere—his blood is Bibline, the very essence of the Bible flows from him. He cannot speak without quoting a text, for his very soul is full of the Word of God. I commend his example to you, beloved.
Are We there Yet? (Matthew 24:3-14)
When examining Matthew 24 too many want to get to the answer before they know the question. We do this because we want our question answered. We look for the answer we want now knowing the question they asked.
An underage child asks to take the car for a spin. You answer no, but their sibling assumes a no to their brother means a yes to them. One asks the wrong question because everything must be about them, the other hears the wrong answer because everything must be about them. I think the disciples are the first brother; they asked the wrong question. They assume that the destruction of the temple must mark the end. We are the second brother. We hear the wrong answer because everything must be about us. But if we really listen to Jesus’ answer it will set us all straight because everything is about Him.
Some self-proclaimed prophecy pundits will tell you that you need to have your Bible in one hand and a newspaper in the other when studying prophecy. I say that this is an arrogant and foolish notion. Andrew Perriman gives far better advice.
We will try to read forwards from the first century rather than backwards from the twenty-first century. One of the reasons why the apocalyptic language of the New Testament can be so puzzling to the modern interpreter is that we cannot help but read it retrospectively and with the advantage, which more often than not turns out to be the disadvantage, of hindsight. It is rather like words written on a glass door. Once we have gone through the door, the text is reversed and becomes difficult to decipher. To make sense of it, we must at least imagine how it must have appeared from the other side of the door as it would have been viewed by those for whom it was written.
When you do this I believe you will see that what is being spoken of in vv. 4-14 happens before the destruction of the temple in AD 70. If you stumble on v. 14 look at Romans 16:26-27 and Colossians 1:6 and give it another read. When we read the text such that it is not all about us, it is then that it becomes most helpful for us. In humbling us, we are helped.
When we read the text rightly I believe there are two major lessons the Spirit intends for us to learn. 1. Keep calm. The end is not yet. Do not be alarmed. These things must take place. Jesus is in control. 2. Carry on. The same Jesus who says that these bad things must happen, says that the good gospel will be proclaimed to the ends of the earth. Jesus is still in control, and the proclamation on the gospel is still his plan. Keep calm, and carry on.
I don’t care what your position is regarding the when of Matthew 24:4-14, if the result is a fearful, hopeless, laziness, you’re doing it wrong. Likewise, I don’t so much what you position is, if the result is a confident, hopeful, work-fulness, you’re getting it mostly right. You’re getting it right in the biggest ways.
To the kids in the back seat asking wrongly and listing wrongly, whining, “Are we there yet?” Jesus says, “I’m driving, stop fretting, we will get there when we get there. Keep calm and carry on.”
No Other Boast 