The Antichrist 3: Things will get worse and worse...

This is now the third post in this series.

The first dealt with the title "Antichrist" itself in 1 and 2 John.

The second dealt with the "Beast from the Sea" in Revelation.

In this post we want to look at Mark 13, Matthew 24, and Luke 21, which the Darby-Hal Lindsey-Tim LaHaye school of prophecy applies to the time of the Antichrist leading up to the second coming of Christ.

Many Christians function with a "things will get worse and worse before the end" paradigm. This is usually an unexamined assumption, a lens through which they read the Bible and the culture around them. Interestingly, it is not the way most Christians prior to the 1800's read the Bible. If Christians prior to the 1800's had a paradigm on this score, it would have been that we are preparing the world for Christ's return, making it more and more Christian in preparation for his arrival.

These views do interact with Revelation. The view that things will get worse and worse is generally called "premillennial" because the idea is that we have not yet come to the time of Christ's 1000 year reign in Revelation. The view that things will get more and more Christian is generally called "postmillennial," where the present time is viewed as a time of Christ's reign prior to the final resurrection.

Of course the millennial imagery of Revelation is difficult in some respects when we try to integrate it with the rest of the New Testament. Revelation has two resurrections--one of martyred Christians prior to Christ's 1000 year reign on earth and one of everyone after that reign. Paul and the rest of the NT know nothing of this scenario.

Since Revelation is so symbolic anyway, it is safer to base our understanding of the second coming more on the rest rather than this one unique passage that doesn't seem to fit neatly with the rest. The position that takes the millennium symbolically rather than as a literal time between resurrections when Christ will reign on earth before a final confrontation with Satan is called the "amillennial" interpretation.

So what are we to make of the worse and worse of Revelation? It's certainly there. It is complicated by the fact that Revelation is primarily about its own time and the fact that the book is so symbolic, but it's there. I won't tell you that the world won't be in crisis just prior to Christ's return.

But it is seriously problematic to go and make these things self-contained prophecies. There is a certain line of thought you sometimes hear people say, something like, "The Bible says 'they will cry peace, peace, but there will be no peace.'" So why try, they say. They might say, "It's foolish to try to make peace between the Palestinians and Israel because the Bible already says there will be no peace.

Like so much prophecy teaching, this use of a theme in Jeremiah and Ezekiel rips the words out of their context and randomly applies them to today (Jer. 6:14; 8:11; Ezek. 13:10, 16). Jeremiah and Ezekiel addressed a time when Israel was conquered by the Babylonians in 586BC. All the imagery about false predictions of peace had to do with those who said God wouldn't allow the Babylonians to conquer them. And, by the way, the predictions of return to land and rebuilt temples in these books... well they returned in 538 and the temple was rebuilt in 516BC, 2500 years ago. We'll mention Ezekiel's temple tomorrow, d.v.

So unless you're a prophet the likes modern prophecy teaching has never seen, stop using your blind interpretations of passages that were fulfilled 2500 years ago as the basis of taking positions on modern foreign policy. The Christian thing to do is to pursue peace between parties on every level, not to surrender to defeat without even trying or giving it a half hearted attempt.

So we finally get to Mark 13 and friends. These verses are often applied to the end times in relation to a rebuilt temple yet to come. The reasoning is clear enough. These passages have material on the return of Christ and the events they tell sure seem to take place just prior to that return. Therefore, these passages tell us how events will unfold just prior to Christ's return.

The problem is that the passages themselves lead us in another direction. Jesus leaves the temple with his disciples. They make a remark on how big the temple stones are. Jesus predicts the destruction of them--"See these stones? No two will be left standing on one another." Then they go across to the Mount of Olives and the disciples ask him when this will happen. That is the literary setting of Mark 13, Matthew 24, and Luke 21.

The temple about which they are asking is not some end times temple. It was the temple standing in AD33. And as Jesus predicts, it was destroyed in AD70. There is "end times" material mixed in Mark 13, to be sure. Matthew 24 distinguishes the material more carefully, "When will these things be and what will be the sign of your coming?" Luke 21 takes out most of the material that would relate to the second coming and focuses the prophecy on the destruction of Jerusalem in AD70--"When you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies" is its "The Message" translation of the more opaque "When you see the abomination that causes desolation standing where it should not stand."

So the context makes it clear that this chapter, at least up to the part about the second coming, is about the events prior to Jerusalem's destruction in AD70 than about the end times. It is about that time that Mark 13 says things like,

"Many will come in my name..." "There will be wars and rumors of wars..."
The period just prior to the destruction of Jerusalem in AD70 was the Jewish War. Israel tried to throw off Roman rule to reestablish its autonomy and would no doubt have installed a ruler if they had won.

"You will be beaten in synagogues..."
The "you" of Mark 13 refers to Peter, James, and John, although we might expand it to the disciples and Jerusalem community around AD70. Obviously few of us today are in danger of being beaten in synagogues, but this passage is not talking about us or our times.

"When you see the abomination, flee Judea..."
And according to tradition the early Christians did flee Jerusalem for Pella when the Roman armies were approaching. And they did desecrate the temple by sacrificing to their standards in the temple precincts. And of course they destroyed Jerusalem and its temple.

"Tribulation like never before and never again..." "If the Lord didn't cut those days short no one would be saved..."

These last two comments are where people get the idea that things will get worse and worse. But if we read them in context, they would be about the time of Jerusalem's destruction in AD70. The word "tribulation" here does not have the special sense of a particular seven year period but refers to a troubled time. Given modern prophecy teaching, we probably shouldn't even translate the word that way to save confusion. When Revelation 7:14 speaks of great tribulation, it similarly does not mention a 7 year period.

I might add that the comment "the gospel must first be preached to all the nations" was understood by the early Christians to be fulfilled in their time. Colossians 1:23 already considers the gospel to have been preached "to every creature under heaven." We remember that they saw the world as much smaller than we do, with the civilized world pretty much ending with Rome in the West, maybe Spain.

So it is highly dubious to read contemporary events against the backdrop of a "worse and worse" philosophy. The relevant passages in the gospels and Revelation were primarily about the days surrounding Jerusalem's destruction and the reign of Domitian. The burden of proof is on anyone who wants to apply them to now.

As we look back at history, history has not been one continuous decline from the time of Jesus to today, to where things are worse now than they have ever been before. Indeed, you can only have this "worse and worse" mentality if you have short term memory. I am befuddled that a person of sixty or seventy could hold this view when the world goes up and down even within a person's lifetime. But if we lived for five or six hundred years, no one would have the silly view that things are getting worse right now as a sign of Christ's return.

It is self-defeating, self-fulfilling and in general lacks a long view of history. And, once again, it makes Christians look stupid. Things are worse today in America than they were ten years ago. But I guarantee you that the average quality of life in America is tremendously better than the overwhelming majority of those who have walked this earth.

Is Obama the Antichrist? Not because of today's set of verses...