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Preface: The End Times Plotline
1. Things will get worse and worse.Epilog: The Biblical Plotline
My goal is to hit publish on this book later today (Saturday).
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After the Millennium, Satan is released one last time (Rev. 20:7). This is rather puzzling. Rome was defeated 1000 years earlier. Christ has been reigning for 1000 years. Why is Satan being released again? This is where, by the way, the book of Revelation fits in the picture of Magog from Ezekiel (Rev. 20:8).
Speculative thoughts begin to go through my head. What if the beginnings of the book of Revelation were during the crisis of the Jewish War? We have seen reason to think the nucleus of Revelation in the days just after Nero (e.g., Rev. 17:10-11). But what if the book did not reach its current form until the time when it is traditionally dated, during the reign of Domitian?
This is very speculative, but we actually might see some basis for the postmillennial interpretation. John of Patmos certainly hoped for the destruction of Rome, but Rome survived. In fact, Rome won. Now we must look for some time in the future when the decisive earthly battle is won. In this sense, the Millennium creates a space for the 2000 years that have passed with us still waiting for Christ's return. Christ already reigns from heaven, but we still await his kingdom to come on earth as it is in heaven.
Taking Revelation as a whole, Christians throughout the centuries have rightly favored the amillennial position. The final form of Revelation pushes us to see these figures and images in terms of the ongoing struggle between Christ and the forces of evil. But each of the positions has an element of truth in it. The premillennialists are right that the full reign of Christ on earth has not begun yet. The postmillennialists may capture some of the early struggle to make sense of the destruction of Jerusalem and the still continued victories of Rome after tribulation.
But in the end, taking Revelation as a whole, the struggle between good and evil continues. The names and empires change, but the fight and tribulation continue.
The Judgment
2. After the brief intermission with Satan's final kick, Revelation 20:11-15 gives us a picture of the final judgment. This time all the dead are raised (Rev. 20:12-13). In the first resurrection in Revelation, only those who had been martyred for their faith are raised. Now, everyone rises -- the good, the bad, and everything in between. The sea gives up its dead. Death and Hades give up their dead.
Both great and small are resurrected. In our modern egalitarian world, we could easily miss the significance of this statement. The small who serve the Lord might have wondered if they were good enough to be counted. They are. The smallest who served the Lord will be resurrected for eternal life. We could say for the unnoticeable person with an evil heart. Their heart against God was noticed too. Everyone will be part.
Even the sea gives up its dead (20:13). Perhaps someone might think God cannot retrieve them. God is very good at what he does. If our body can be located, God will start resurrecting there. But even if our bodies have been parsed to the winds, he will reconstitute us.
Everyone is judged according to what they did during their lives. John does not use the language of "justification by faith." Nevertheless, Jesus the Lamb of God is clearly the only path to God. Those who have not taken the mark of the beast have instead the name of God on their foreheads (22:5). Again, this is probably not a visible mark or tattoo. The mark, whether it be of the beast or of God, is a spiritual designation. God sees it, so to speak.
We Protestants should not gloss over the fact that this judgment looks at our deeds. Interestingly, we find this sense in Paul's writings as well (2 Cor. 5:10). We may find our place in the kingdom of God based on our faith, but our works are also part of the equation. Those who recanted their faith during the great tribulation were not accepted into the new Jerusalem. Rather, they have the mark of the beast on them. Their deeds have disqualified them at the same time that their deeds reflect their hearts.
However, the ultimate qualifier or disqualifier is whether their names were in the Book of Life (20:15; 21:27). Although it may be somewhat foreign to our thinking, there is some biblical basis for thinking that there can be varied rewards even to those who are saved (e.g., Luke 19:12-27; 1 Cor. 3:12-15). Could there be varying punishments for those whose names are not in the Book of Life, as in Dante's Inferno? This passage could be taken to imply that.
3. Matthew 25:31-46 give us another picture of final judgment. A throne is involved there as well. Jesus, the Son of Humanity, sits on a throne and judges all the peoples of the earth (25:32). He divides them into two groups, the sheep and the goats.
It is interesting that the dividing characteristic in Matthew is neither a confession of faith nor one's name being in the Book of Life. The criterion is how one has treated others.
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Then the King will say to those on his right hand, "Come, those who are blessed by my Father. Inherit the kingdom that has been prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me [something] to eat. I was thirsty, and you gave me drink. I was a foreigner, and you brought me in. Naked, and you clothed me. I was sick, and you visited me. I was in prison, and you came to me.
Matthew 25:34-36
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It is natural for us to assume that faith is assumed in this equation, especially given the rest of the New Testament. But we should also sit with this passage a little before we go there. The only distinguishing criterion in the passage is one's disposition toward those in need.
Lake of Fire
4. The Bible uses different images for the final destinies of both the saved and the damned...
The book of Revelation is an "apocalypse." An apocalypse is not really a genre we have today. Nevertheless, several different Jewish apocalypses have survived from around the time of Christ. A typical Jewish apocalypse is a little like a historical novel. The author pretends to be a famous person from the past prophesying about the present.
For example, let's say I wrote a short story where John Wesley from the 1700s had a vision about the Methodist church of today. It would really be me writing about the present day. But in my apocalypse, Wesley would be telling about a vision he had. (I might also not get in trouble for what I am saying because, after all, John Wesley is saying it.)
Now, the book of Revelation doesn't have that element of a Jewish apocalypse. Most think that it really was John of Patmos behind the book. It is also possible that John was relating some part of an actual vision he had. But, given the genre, it would not be lying if he did not see all of the book of Revelation in a vision. He could simply have been inspired to follow the normal template for an apocalypse.
In a Jewish apocalypse, an otherworldly figure comes to visit the prophet in question. In the case of Revelation, it is Jesus himself who comes to John. The heavenly visitor then gives a "revelation" to the prophet. It is a revelation both about what is going on in heaven that the audience can't see yet and also about what is soon going to take place on earth. Often, an apocalypse was written during a time of crisis. The revelation brings a word of assurance that God is going to prevail in the end, even if things don't look so good at the moment.
By its very nature, an apocalypse is full of symbolism and figurative language. That is one of the challenges of interpreting a book like Revelation. Amid all of its symbolism, what are we meant to take as straightforward, and what is more like a kaleidoscope -- possibly the same event seen from different perspectives. For example, we probably should not take Revelation as a straightforward linear progression over time, with chapter 11 happening right after chapter 10.
To get a handle on the book, it might be helpful to take a look at how its imagery progresses. What is the outline of Revelation, and how do its parts fit together?
2. Revelation begins with John on the island of Patmos, and he receives a visit from Jesus on the Lord's Day. Revelation 1 sets us up for the rest of the book. Jesus is coming back soon (1:7), and he is going to tell John "what is about to happen after these things" (1:19).
The next two chapters (Rev. 2-3) are then letters to seven real churches with real situations in Asia Minor. He goes clockwise: Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, Laodicea. More than any audience today or at any other time in history, this revelation is for them.
Chapters 4-5 are then in the throne room of heaven. Revelation 4 gives proper worship to God the Father in the throne room. Revelation 5 then turns to the Lamb, Jesus, who is the only one worthy to open the scroll that will unfold the final judgment.
The Lamb now breaks the seven seals of the scroll. And after he opens the seventh seal, we get seven trumpets (Rev. 6-11). This probably is not a linear sequence but an apocalyptic picture. The point is that God's judgment is going to be bad, and you don't want to be on the receiving end of it.
During both the sixth seal and the sixth trumpet, there is an intermission to the sequence. In Revelation 7 we get a picture of the martyred in heaven -- 144,000 from Israel along with a group from every nation, tribe, people, and language (7:14). Revelation 11 gives a second intermission where two witnesses are mentioned. The temple seems to be still standing, and we have already suggested that imagery of the Jewish War may stand somewhat in the background of this chapter.
3. A second vision begins at 11:19. This is not a continuation of a storyline but another version of the same one. This vision chiefly covers Revelation 12-19. In it, we get a clearer picture of the historical context of Revelation. Revelation 17 in particular gives us a key to the identity of the beast and who the enemy is. As we saw in chapter 6, the beast is modeled on Nero, the number of whose name is 666 (Rev. 13:18).
The kingdom that is the enemy of God's people is Babylon, which is a cipher for Rome. Rome is Babylon because, just as Babylon destroyed Jerusalem and its temple, so Rome would destroy Jerusalem and its temple. Revelation 18 looks to the judgment and fall of Rome. Although this did not happen in the first century, Rome becomes symbolic of the defeat of God's enemies that will take place once and for all in the judgment.
We get more clearly who John has in mind as the oppressor of God's people. It is Rome -- or Babylon -- that is "drunk on the blood of God's holy people" (17:6). The prostitute in Revelation 17 is Rome, "the great city that rules over the kings of the earth" (17:18). While John pictures the judgment of Rome, we should expand the image to the final judgment of all who have opposed God throughout history.
Revelation 14 gives us a picture of the 144,000 again. This is not a different 144,000 but another picture of the same group who did not give in under Roman persecution. This time around, they do not seem to be restricted to those saved from Israel. They represent all the saved, a symbolic number.
To finish the outline of Revelation, there is a third vision from 19:11 to 22:5. This vision reiterates the defeat of the beast again (19:20). However, this final vision pushes to the final judgment and the reign of Christ on earth. Revelation ends with both the conclusion of the vision in the new Jerusalem (22:6-17) and the conclusion of the letters to the churches (22:18-21).
4. Again, we probably should not take the book of Revelation as a sequence of events. Its symbols repeat the same basic elements over and over again. In John's day, the point was that Rome had become the archenemy of the church, and the emperors of Rome had become antichrists, although Revelation never uses that term. The church was experiencing intense persecution and martyrdom by Rome, which was drunk on the blood of the saints.
The empire had come to expect emperor worship. The very coinage of Rome implied the worship of the emperor, making it difficult for Christians even to participate in the normal economy without feeling like idolators, like they had taken the mark of the beast. These images may very well have parallels in the end times, but it seems impossible for us to know how they will play out. All we know is that the imagery is built extensively from John's own world and the great tribulation the church was experiencing in his time.
The other recurring image is that of judgment. There would be a resurrection of all the dead. Those who had persecuted God's people would be judged. Christ would reign on earth eventually. There eventually would be the new Jerusalem and an eternal Millennium. More on the Millennium in the next chapter.
5. What then is Armaggedon? ...
For some reason, probably because of the freedom God has built into the creation, good almost always has its opponents. Whether it be Pharaoh at the time of the exodus or the high priest when Jesus was on earth, there is almost always a bad guy in the story. The Bible is full of them.
As we saw in the previous chapter, the archetypal bad guy in the key passages in Daniel turns out to be a Syrian king named Antiochus Epiphanes. He is the one who, in 175 BC, deposes the anointed high priest and puts his own favorite in charge of Israel (Dan. 9:26). It is he who in 167 BC puts an end to the sacrifice and offering (Dan. 9:37). He defiles the temple with a "desolating abomination" (Dan. 11:31). He offers a pig on the altar and constructs an altar to Zeus in the temple. Some three years later, the temple was purified and restored (164 BC).
In other words, the prophecies of Daniel were initially fulfilled even before the time of Christ, including its prophecies about a "desolater." There was already a secondary fulfillment in the destruction of Jerusalem (Mark 13:14). Who knows, perhaps there will be a third fulfillment in the end times. There wouldn't need to be. We'll find out.
Antichrists
2. There's a good chance that you have heard of the Antichrist. The Antichrist is the archetypal opponent of Christ and Christianity. The term itself comes from 1 John 2.
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"Little children, it is the last hour, and just as you have heard that antichrist is coming, even now, many antichrists have arisen. Thus we know it is the last hour." (1 John 2:18)
"Who is the liar but the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ. This is the antichrist, the one who denies the Father and the Son." (2:22)
"Every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God, and this is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard that it was coming and is already in the world" (4:3)
"Many deceivers have gone out into the world that are not confessing that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh. This is the deceiver and the antichrist" (2 John 1:7)
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Because of the noise in our heads from other passages and contemporary debates, we can easily overread these passages. If we can bracket those other voices out and listen to these passages in context, none of them are necessarily referring to an individual person. In fact, the lead-off verse in 1 John 2:18 says that many antichrists are here, not a single figure.
There is also no "the" on the word antichrist in 2:18. In Greek, that doesn't mean that we should put the word "an" in front -- "an antichrist is coming." It may simply say that opposition to Christ is a predictable element in the equation.
The very next verse hints at who John the elder actually had in mind. It is a group that had split off from John's church (2:19). 2 John 1:7 suggests that they were early Gnostics who denied that Jesus had come to earth in the flesh (cf. 1 John 4:2). We call this group "Docetists" because they thought Jesus only seemed to be human. [1] They may have been Jewish since they seem to have acknowledged God the Father but denied Jesus the Son (1 John 2:22).
The bottom line is that the antichrists of 1 and 2 John are not primarily an end times figure like the Antichrist we have heard of. There will always be antichrists in the world. Opposition to Christ is always coming. Ironically, the passages from which we get the name "Antichrist" are not primarily about the Antichrist.
Now, John may allude to teaching about an Antichrist. When he says, "You have heard antichrist is coming," he may be alluding to teaching in the church about an archetypal opponent to Christ. It is possible. He may allude to some of the other teachings we will examine in this chapter. But in general, he was referring to some of the Gnostic resistance to a proper understanding of Jesus that existed in the late first century in certain church circles.
Bottom line: 1 John does not clearly refer to an end-times figure known as the Antichrist. It could allude to such teaching, but its primary concern was a group in the late first-century church who opposed a proper understanding of Jesus.
The Man of Lawlessness
3. One of the most enigmatic passages in the Bible is 2 Thessalonians 2. It mentions a "man of lawlessness" who opposes God. He would certainly qualify as an antichrist, although the word is not used of him here.
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[The Day of the Lord will not come] unless the apostasy should come first, and the man of lawlessness should be revealed, the son of destruction. [He is] the one who opposes and exalts himself against everything called "God" or any object of worship. Accordingly, he seats himself in the temple of God trying to demonstrate that he is God. Don't you remember that I was telling you about these things while I was still around?
And you know what is restraining him now so that he might be revealed in his own time. For the mystery of lawlessness is already working -- [there is] only the one restraining until he should be out of the midst. And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will destroy with the Spirit of his mouth, and he will destroy with the appearance of his arrival.
The arrival of [the lawless one] is accompanied by the working of Satan with all power and signs and false wonders and with all the deceit of unrighteousness to those who are perishing because they did not receive the love of the truth so that they might be saved. So God sends on them the working of delusion that they might believe in the lie.
2 Thess. 2:3-11
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This is a difficult passage because nothing is said of the temple being destroyed (still less of it being reconstructed). The most natural way to think of this prediction is thus that it relates to Paul's own day and to the time before the temple was destroyed.
It is also very cryptic like there is code language here in case someone would read the letter. "You know," but the letter doesn't say. "Didn't I already talk about this when I was with you?" Nudge, nudge, wink, wink. This secret quality of the letter again reinforces a sense that it is about events that were unfolding at the time of writing.
As we have said repeatedly, that does not mean that it cannot be about the end times as well. Paul can be inspired to say more than he knows he is saying. But in his mind, something in his own time was likely going on.
What or who was keeping the man of lawlessness from fully emerging? Again, the language is very cryptic. No answer seems completely satisfying. The Holy Spirit is both a "what" (the Greek word for spirit is neuter) and a "who" (the Holy Spirit is a person), but it is not clear how the Spirit would ever be taken out of the way.
One theory is that the reference is to Paul himself. A self-reference might explain the cryptic nature of those comments. "You know what is keeping him from unleashing" (that is, me). "But when he is taken out of the way" (that is, me), he will come full on.
4. The dating of 2 Thessalonians is often considered straightforward. The standard answer is that 2 Thessalonians was written at about the same time as 1 Thessalonians, around AD 50-52. Perhaps Paul writes 1 Thessalonians to explain the resurrection. Then some overreact and think the Day of the Lord has already happened.
However, there is nothing we know about at the time that fits the secretive nature of 2 Thessalonians. For example, there seems to be concern that its message be authenticated. Paul's signature is emphasized at the end (2 Thess. 3:17). There is also a strong parallel between the beginning of the letter and the beginning of 1 Thessalonians. Some have even suggested it has been copied.
For these reasons, I have hypothesized that the real context of 2 Thessalonians is in the last days of Paul before he was put to death by Nero. [2] This would put it in the range of AD 62 to 68. Some have suggested that 2 Thessalonians was "pseudonymous," written under Paul's name. If that were the case, we would still imagine it written soon after his death, when he would have been taken "out of the way."
As we will see in the rest of this chapter, the image of Nero as an antichrist figure, even if the word antichrist is not used, seems to be a major part of the imagery of Revelation as well. So it would be in keeping with this strand of New Testament thinking if 2 Thessalonians also had Nero in mind.
The imagery of 2 Thessalonians 2 also fits the tone and flavor of Mark 13. For example, both talk about signs and wonders accompanying false messiahs. They both suggest that there will be those who are deceived among the people of God. A context of the Jewish War -- which overlapped with Nero's rule -- would make some sense of these comments. 2 Thessalonians then, like Mark 13, would pertain to the lead-up to the temple's destruction ("sets up in the temple as God").
The bottom line is that Paul had some figure in his own day in mind and that the temple to which he refers was the temple that was standing at that time. More on the temple in the next chapter. Is it possible that there will be another man of lawlessness in the end times, even another temple? Far be it from me to say that there will not be.
My point in this book is more to indicate that most of the prophecies that are part of the dispensationalist approach already had fulfillments in biblical times. God can do whatever he wants in the future. We'll know that when it comes. But these prophecies had a great deal to do with their own times.
The Beasts of Revelation
5. [The chapter continues...]
[1] The Greek word dokeo means to "seem."
[2] See my Explanatory Notes on 1 and 2 Thessalonians (Marion: Independently Published, 2020).
We now come to the distinctive feature of John Darby's dispensationalism: the Great Tribulation. The idea of meeting in the air was not new. The idea of antichrist was not new. But no one before around 1830 had ever suggested that there would be a seven-year period of tribulation after a rapture of the righteous to heaven. This was the distinctive invention of John Nelson Darby.
And it is an ingenious invention! The starting point is Revelation 7:14, the key text for this chapter.
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These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation, and they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.
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We saw in chapter 3 that these individuals were not likely individuals raptured from the earth while alive. Rather, these are likely those who have been martyred for their faith. In chapter 3, we also argued that John probably was especially thinking about those who were martyred under the Roman Empire.
In this chapter, however, we want to explore where the idea of a seven-year Tribulation came from. There are two places in particular. The one is Daniel 9, and the second is Revelation 12-13.
Daniel 9
2. Just as Ezekiel 38-39 is a passage that doesn't get a lot of attention, John Nelson Darby also noticed another little read passage in Daniel 9:24-27:
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Seventy weeks are decreed upon your people and your holy city for the fullness of the transgression... from the going out of the word to restore and rebuild Jerusalem to the anointed one, the prince, [will be] seven weeks. And for sixty-two weeks it will return... And after the sixty-two weeks, an anointed one will be cut off and lose everything. And the people of the coming prince will destroy the city and the sanctuary... And he will make a covenant firm with many for one week. And in the middle of the week, he will stop the sacrifice and offering. And on the wing of abominations, the desolator [will come] until complete and what is decreed is poured out upon the desolator.
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It is commonly assumed that a "week" here stands for a seven year period. It is hard to make sense of the prophecy historically if it were referring to seven day periods. Given that figurative assumption, Darby then interpreted the years from that point on literally. Since 70 times 7 is 490, he assumed that Daniel was referring to a literal span of 490 years.
He then took the one who "will be cut off and lose everything" as a reference to Christ. Since that point was 69 weeks into the prophecy, that would put AD 33 or thereabouts 483 years into the prophecy. Counting backwards, that would put the time of the word going out to restore and rebuild Jerusalem at about 450 BC. While not exact, this is about the time that Nehemiah rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem (ca. 444 BC).
But the most distinctive point of Darby's interpretation is his sense that the counting of weeks went on pause at the point of Jesus' death. At that point God switched "dispensations." God had been working with Israel. Now God switches to the church for a new period of history -- the "Church Age." We are still in this age today. [1]
However, Darby believed that God was still planning to make his math work. At the end of time, after the church was raptured to heaven, God would switch dispensations again. In The Great Tribulation, God would get that last seven-year week. He would finish up his dealings with Israel. In the end, Israel would turn to Christ, as we talked about in chapter 2.
During that final seven-year period of history, a "desolator" would arise. He will stop the sacrifice and offering of the temple. (By the way, that implies that the Jerusalem temple will need to be rebuilt.) Darby correlated this prophecy with what 2 Thessalonians 2:4 has to say about a man of lawlessness setting himself up in the temple as God. He correlated it with the abomination that causes desolation in Daniel 11:31 and Mark 13:14. He correlated this figure with the Beast from the Sea in Revelation 13:1. He called this figure, "The Antichrist," following 1 John 2:18.
This is all ingenious, the sign of a beautiful mind. Perhaps he was inspired by the Holy Spirit! Nevertheless, we will take the next few chapters to unpack each of these texts to see what each seems to refer to in its own context. Far be it from me to say that God cannot stitch these passages together and fulfill them however he wishes. At the same time, in context, it is not at all clear that these passages naturally go together in this way.
In this chapter, we especially want to examine his interpretation of the weeks in Daniel.
3. You'll notice that there is a mixture of literal and figurative here, and the weeks don't exactly line up. For example, there is nothing in the text to suggest that we would skip 2000 years between the 69th and 70th week. Darby just made that up with no basis whatsoever in the text of Daniel.
Most Christian interpreters throughout the centuries had taken the prophecy to refer to Jesus' death and perhaps the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70. This includes not only early church figures like Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and Tertullian but Protestant Reformers like John Calvin. That is to say, they believed the prophecy was already fulfilled.
Even then, there are questions about how literally we should take the numbers. The whole prophecy is very symbolic. For example, weeks are taken as years. We are on figurative ground from the very beginning. But then we become very literal and precise with how the years are played out. It's like we are mixing genres -- extremely figurative meets extremely literal.
By most reckonings, for example, the span of time from Nehemiah to Christ is remarkably close but a few years off. From 444 BC to 33 AD is 477 years. So it would seem that, by any reckoning, the weeks of seven years are approximate. This is no problem at all given the genre. The symbolism of the sevens was more important than the precision of the years.
But there are other questions too. For example, why start with Nehemiah? I would have thought the more natural referent is 538 BC when Cyrus gave the word to the Jews to "restore and rebuild Jerusalem." Daniel is set in the 500s, not the 400s. Daniel is set during the Babylonian captivity. The most natural way to take the "word to restore and rebuild Jerusalem" is thus in terms of the return of the Jews from captivity, which took place in 538 BC.
But then 490 years puts us in the year 48 BC, a year of no particular note. Are there any other clues in Daniel that might suggest the prophecy is referring to some other event?
Yes, why yes there are. Daniel 11 reads as a virtual blow-by-blow of the events leading up to the desecration of the Jerusalem temple by Antiochus Epiphanes, the king of Syria, in 167 BC. We have already mentioned that this event was the first fulfillment of Daniel 11:31 and the "abomination that causes desolation." We will return to this passage in chapter 7.
In other words, we know that the book of Daniel has material that is focused on the events surrounding the Maccabean crisis from 167-164 BC. In that material, a desolator puts a halt to the sacrifice and offering of the temple. And he does this approximately halfway through the crisis.
Who then would be the two anointed ones in the passage? The first anointed one is difficult in any rendering. Following Darby's approach, this person would need to live in the early 300s BC, and we know of no such figure.
Starting from the call to return to Jerusalem -- and taking the numbers to be approximate -- there are candidates for the interpretation that starts with 538 BC. For example, Joshua the anointed high priest of Zechariah 3:8 was high priest in the late 500s. Again, taking the numbers to be approximate, one might point to Nehemiah as the anointed one in the mid-400s BC. There are at least options, where there are none for Darby.
The Maccabean crisis is earlier than we might expect if the numbers are taken exactly, but the genre itself suggests that the numbers should not be taken exactly. What then is the final week? The final week would refer to the Maccabean crisis itself, which only came to a head with the desecration of Jerusalem in 167 BC. Antiochus had already been implementing actions to Hellenize Israel since about 175 BC, including a prohibition on circumcision, on the observance of Sabbath, and on keeping food laws. He ordered the construction of Greek institutions like a gymnasium.
The last three years of the crisis were the most intense. You might argue that they came "in the middle of the week."
Who then would be the second anointed one who was "cut off" and lost everything. This is often related to the high priest Onias III, who was deposed and replaced by Antiochus, the Syrian king. This deposing took place at the beginning of the troubles Antiochus brought on Jerusalem in 175 BC, arguably the beginning of the "week" to which Daniel refers.
Is it possible that God planted a double meaning here, one in relation to Jesus as well? Certainly. We find the phenomenon of double interpretation often in the New Testament. However, from a contextual standpoint, the book of Daniel itself more likely points to the Maccabean crisis in Daniel 9.
In either of these cases, there is no week left over for the end times. In this interpretation, Darby went completely beyond anything the text indicates. And indeed, he saw an interpretation that apparently no Christian (or Jew) had ever seen in the passage before him for some 1800 years.
4. What about Revelation then? Does it not mention several 3.5-year periods too? ...
[1] This switching to the church is in part why Darby did not anticipate that Israel would be gathered and be reconstituted as a nation before the Tribulation. The re-establishment of Israel in 1948 thus caused some adjustment to what was by then the standard dispensational understanding.
Because I want to get my current writing project done before the eclipse, I'm substituting this post for my weekly review.
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If we did a "heatmap" for the parts of the Bible that people read and talk about a lot in contrast to those that get very little attention, the book of Ezekiel would probably turn out to be one of those books that is read less often. At this point, some would begin to chastise us. It is all the word of God, and preachers should preach the whole council of God! This dynamic is why preachers are told in seminary to use the lectionary, which is a tool to make sure you cover all of Scripture in the course of three years.
However, before we get too hard on ourselves, there is a good reason why some parts of Scripture are read more often than others. The books of the Bible tell us they were written to people who have been dead for thousands of years. When you write something to an ancient audience, even though it is inspired, it is bound to have some parts that apply more directly and others that apply more indirectly. In other words, some parts will inevitably have more to do with "that time" than "all time." We can learn from all of it, but some of it is bound to be more directly relevant to them than to us.
Take the middle chapters of Isaiah, chapters 13-39. There is some very rich material in these chapters! At the same time, most of these chapters involves the condemnation of nations that no longer exist. For example, Isaiah 16 is a prophecy against Moab. Where is Moab again? It no longer exists. So it is no surprise that you don't hear a lot of sermons on Isaiah 16.
A good deal of Ezekiel feels that way too. There is some incredibly rich prophecy in there. Yet it also relates to a situation in the mid-500s BC. And there is some strange material in there too -- wheels within wheels, eating scrolls, laying on your side for months on end! The Holy Spirit makes certain parts of Scripture jump out at different people in different times, places, and situations. At other times, these passages may stand ready more in the background.
2. Ezekiel 38-39 is a passage somewhat like Isaiah 16. It talks about places like Magog and has puzzling names like Gog, Meshech, and Tubal. It is very difficult to align these names with any known historical figures or places. The battle that is pictured in these chapters similarly does not align with any known battles.
So it is no surprise that dispensationalists typically align these chapters with an end-times battle that has not yet happened. The Scofield Reference Bible in 1917 had this to say about Ezekiel 38:
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That the primary reference is to the northern (European) powers, headed up by Russia, all agree... The reference to Meshech and Tubal (Moscow and Tobolsk) is a clear mark of identification. Russia and the northern powers have been the latest persecutors of dispersed Israel, and it is congruous... that destruction should fall at the climax of the last mad attempt to exterminate the remnant of Israel in Jerusalem. The whole prophecy belongs to the yet future "day of Jehovah"... and to the battle of Armageddon... but includes also the final revolt of the nations at the close of the kingdom-age.
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During the days of the Soviet Union, it was easy to think that it would spearhead an attack of this sort, although many other enemies are mentioned: Persia, Cush, Put, Gomer, Beth-Togarmah. These names represent areas like Egypt and Europe. One could easily think that the picture is that of the whole world against Israel, much like Armageddon in Revelation 16 when the "kings of the whole world" come to battle against God's people.
3. How do prophecy teachers integrate the attack of Magog into their understanding of the Tribulation and the end times? The answer is that there is no one agreed application. Some have seen this event as taking place before the rapture and the Great Tribulation. Others think it will happen soon after the rapture.
How might these scenarios go?
The one I remember from Hal Lindsey years ago is that, because Ezekiel 39:9 says it will take seven years for them to use the (obviously wooden) weapons for firewood, it would have to take place before the Tribulation began. In fact, since Lindsey didn't think there would be much time for such things in the last 3.5 years of the Tribulation, he suggested that perhaps Magog would come up against Israel three and a half years before the Tribulation.
Perhaps for similar reasons, others suggest that this event will take place soon after the rapture but before the Tribulation begins. Then there are seven years to burn the weapons. This event might also then provide a mechanism for the Antichrist to arise.
Both of these scenarios have in common a military event where large portions of the world rise up against Israel. They throw everything they have at Israel but are defeated.
4. I often have told my Bible students over the years that we will know what the fulfillment of such things looks like after it happens. Frankly, I haven't found a "one-to-one" pattern of fulfillment between the Old and New Testaments. Often, it seems like the fulfillments are somewhat unexpected. In hindsight, we look back at a passage like Isaiah 53 and say, "Of course, the Messiah is going to suffer for the world." But as far as I can tell, not a single Jew had that thought prior to the death of Christ, including the disciples themselves.
The imagery of Ezekiel came to mind in 1948 when so many Arab countries rose up against Israel after it declared its independence in 1948 -- the "Arab-Israeli" war. But that was not the end of the world, no matter how clear it seemed at the time! That moment was not the specific fulfillment of Ezekiel 38-39. But this passage always comes to mind in prophecy circles whenever some force is in tension with Israel. And thus far, they have always been wrong. 100% failure rate.
In fact, a number of Arab nations have recognized Israel as a nation since then. Dispensationalists resisted Jimmy Carter for trying to bring peace between countries like Egypt and Israel. "You're wasting your time," they said (lifeboat). "You're coddling the enemy!" But there have now been over 50 years of peace between Egypt and Israel. Imagine if their "clarity" on prophecy had prevailed. They were just wrong. 100% failure rate.
Bottom line?
It is alarming when the interpretations of passages like these run the risk of becoming self-fulfilling prophecies in modern politics. In a 1971 speech, Ronald Reagan as governor of California expressed the belief that the Soviet Union was Magog. When he then gave his "evil empire" speech as president in 1983, it is only natural to assume he had this imagery from Ezekiel 38-39 in the back of his mind.
Thankfully, Reagan later collaborated when Gorbachev indicated he wanted to restructure the Soviet Union and move toward peace between the two countries. As it turned out, the Soviet Union of the twentieth century did not turn out to be Magog. But you can see how potentially dangerous it was for Reagan to have this equation in his head. By the grace of God, the notion did not lead him to assume that Russia could only be the enemy, because he was wrong. 100% failure rate on equations like these.
Today, we face similar danger when politicians with immense power assume that, say, Iran must always be the enemy or, for that matter, that the nation of Israel can never do anything wrong. The world is at great risk if our leaders do not make decisions based on the evidence and holding all nations to the standards of international law. Otherwise, we run the risk of losing opportunities for peace or looking the other way at injustice.
As mentioned in chapter 1, there have been many moments of good and bad times over the last 2000 years. We run the serious risk of unnecessarily making the times bad if we assume they must always be bad. We should work for the good of the world at all times and, when the bad presents itself, deal with it with wisdom and sound moral values. When we assume, it makes a mess out of you and me (or something like that).
5. So what is the right interpretation of Ezekiel...
As I mentioned in the Preface, the 1972 movie, A Thief in the Night, begins with a husband being snatched out of his bathroom while he is shaving. His wife is left behind. This is the rapture, probably the most discussed event of the end times. Suddenly, all the Christians on earth are taken to be with Jesus, and the Great Tribulation begins.
When I was a boy in the 70s, the big debate in my circles was whether the rapture would happen before the seven-year Tribulation (pre-trib rapture), in the middle of it (mid-trib rapture), or at the end of it (post-trib rapture). But there was no question about whether there would be a rapture or a Tribulation. These were assumptions.
A quick look on YouTube and elsewhere will quickly reveal that there is a lot of debate today about whether the idea of a rapture is even biblical in the first place. The same goes for a seven-year Tribulation. What is all the debate about, you ask?
2. The core text is 1 Thessalonians 4:15-17:
"We who are living, who are remaining until the arrival of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep because the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are living, the ones remaining, together with them will be snatched in the clouds for the meeting of the Lord in the air. And thus always we will be with the Lord."
The key word in Greek is "will be snatched," "will be caught up," "will be taken." The word was translated into Latin as rapiemur. The Latin word is where the idea of a "raptor" dinosaur comes from, a dinosaur that Jurassic Park vividly pictured as "snatching" people to eat them. It has a sense of seizing or grabbing.
So what's all the fuss about? Isn't it clear?
The questions are two fold. First, how literal is this picture. Isn't the air all around us? I reject this sort of "demythologizing" of the text -- attempts to make the text fit with our current conceptions of the world. They thought heaven was straight up. In Acts 1:9, Jesus ascends straight up into a cloud. Don't try to make the biblical text conform to our picture of the world. It wasn't written to us originally. It was written to them, and they pictured heaven as straight up. Get over it.
The more serious question is what happens after we are snatched up to meet Jesus in the air. A very good argument can be made that we meet Jesus in the air in order to come back down for the judgment of the world. Arguments have been made that his language of meeting Jesus is reminiscent of what happens when a dignitary comes to town. You go to the edge of town to escort him into the city.
Paul had a sense that both Christians would participate in the judgment of the world, including the judgment of angels. He tells the Corinthians that they would judge angels and the world (1 Cor. 6:2-3). Jesus tells the disciples that they will sit on twelve thrones judging the children of Israel (Matt. 19:28). The New Testament generally sees the kingdom of God as something that happens on a "new" earth (e.g., Rev. 21:1-2; Luke 13:29), but it is on earth.
1 Thessalonians 4 does not say where we will be forever with the Lord, but the most likely answer given the rest of the New Testament is that it will be on a renewed earth. Jesus will descend. The dead will rise re-embodied from the ground to meet Jesus. Then we will be "snatched up" as well.
The battle lines will be drawn. Those on Jesus' side will be on the right side of the battle lines. The judgment of the world will commence. Here it probably is significant that the word air refers to the sky just above the earth, not to heaven. That is to say, we are meeting Jesus right above the earth, not in heaven.
Paul's writings know nothing of a seven-year period between Jesus' arrival and the judgment. Nor do they know anything of a thousand year Millennium. It is an argument from silence, but it puts pressure on us to make sure we are interpreting the passages in Revelation correctly.
3. Another set of passages that are often taken to be about the rapture are Matthew 24:36-41 and Luke 17:34-36. Here is what Matthew 24 says:
"As they were in those days before the Flood -- eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage -- right up until the day Noah entered the ark, and they did not know until the Flood came and took them all, so also will be the arrival of the Son of Humanity. Then two will be in the field. One is taken, and one is left. As two women are grinding in the mill, one is taken and one is left."
As Craig Keener and others have shown, this passage is actually saying something dramatically different than what we think of as the rapture. [1] If we follow the train of thought, those that the Flood takes away are not the saved, but the damned! The passage is not talking about the taking away of the righteous, but the sweeping away of those who are wicked.
It is the same in Luke's version. Luke 17:34-35 talk similarly about one being taken and one left. Then the disciples ask where they are taken. Jesus' response is that they are taken to where the vultures gather around dead bodies (17:37). So, far from supporting the dispensational understanding of the rapture, these verses picture the righteous remaining on earth in the coming kingdom.
4. What about Revelation 7:14? Does not Revelation picture the righteous in heaven, those who have been snatched up from the earth from the Great Tribulation? We will explore the idea of the Tribulation in chapter 5. For now, here is how Revelation 7 reads:
"After these things I looked and, behold, a great crowd whom no one was able to number from every nation and tribes and peoples and tongues standing before the throne and before the Lamb... And one of the elders answered, saying to me, 'Who are these who have put on white robes, and from where have they come?'
"And I said to him, 'Sir, you know.' And he said to me, 'These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation, and they washed their robes and they made them white by the blood of the Lamb'" (Rev. 7:9, 13-14).
It has been all too easy to see this group as the group of those who have been raptured from the earth. However, the picture is much more grim. How is it that they have come to the throne room of God?
We find the most likely answer in the previous chapter -- the context...
[1] Michael Brown and Craig Keener, Not Afraid of the Antichrist: Why We Don't Believe in a Pre-Tribulation Rapture (Bloomington, MN: Chosen, 2019), 146.
I continue my current book project, trying to finish in time for the eclipse on April 8. Last night I finished the chapter on Israel becoming a nation, going on to explore the imagery of the fig tree in Mark 13 as well as the meaning of Romans 11 and "all Israel being saved."
On to the next chapter this morning.
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Growing up, we never stopped to think about our “philosophy of history.” Everyone just knew that things were going to get worse and worse until Jesus returned.
Of course, if you look back at the last 2000 years, there have been good and bad times. Things haven't irrevocably been getting worse for 2000 years. But this is the "premillennial" mindset and the assumption of my childhood. In the days right before Jesus' return, things will get worse and worse and worse.
2. Let me pause to explain this millennial language. Revelation talks about a Millennium in chapter 20, a thousand year period with Christ reigning on earth. We will explore it further in chapter 9.
There are three basic views of what this Millennium signifies. First, there are those who take it literally and believe it will happen after Jesus comes to judge the earth. These are premillennialists who believe that a literal Millennium is still to come. This is the order in which events happen in Revelation. There is a battle called Armageddon in which the forces of darkness are defeated (Rev. 16). Satan is bound for a thousand years, and Jesus reigns over the earth.
Throughout most of church history, amillennialism has been the dominant view. This view does not take the Millennium literally but sees it as the spiritual reign of Christ now no matter what might be going on politically with Christianity in the world. This was the dominant view throughout the Middle Ages and even by the Protestant reformers.
Postmillennialism is a view that largely coincided with the optimism of the 1700s and 1800s. In this view, the world was getting better and better in preparation for Christ's return. As it were, the church would prepare the way for the return of Christ. This optimism was more or less dashed by the wake up call of two world wars and a reminder that humanity still reminds capable of the worst atrocities of the past.
3. Most of us didn't have a name for it, but I grew up a "premillennial." Even today, most of the American church is premillennial. We believe that, right before Jesus returns, things will get worse and worse and worse. Then when it looks like there is absolutely no hope at all, Jesus will come back.
In the late 1800s, the preacher D. L. Moody used the image of a lifeboat to capture this perspective on the world. The world was like a ship that was sinking. We needed to get into the lifeboat of salvation. Clearly, he had drunk from the waters of dispensationalism and John Darby that we mentioned in chapter 1.
From this perspective, there is no point in trying to save the world. It's going down like the Titanic. It has no hope. This view of the world thus has little time for trying to improve society. It downplays concepts like trying to help the poor or address social ills. There's no point in trying to address climate change. The world is burning, and there's nothing we can do about it. Just get in the boat and try to get as many other people as you can in the boat with you.
These are all largely the unarticulated assumptions of a worldview. The bridge is out. We need to warn people. This is no time to work on their car engines. Jesus is coming back any day!
4. Where does it come from in the Bible? Two places, chiefly. First, there are the passages in Mark 13 and Matthew 24 where Jesus talks about the lead up to the temple's destruction. Then there is of course the book of Revelation itself.
Note that this tone is not equally sustained everywhere in the New Testament. For example, the Gospel of John does not have this same urgency. The Pastoral Epistles (1 & 2 Timothy and Titus) do not have this urgency. Paul's early writings, which seem to expect Jesus to return within his lifetime, do not have the same feel as Mark 13. Even Luke's version of Mark 13 feels less urgent.
What makes the difference? The difference is when Mark is being written. Mark was arguably written around the time when the Romans surrounded and then destroyed Jerusalem. Nowhere is this clearer than when he inserts the words "let the reader understand" into Mark 13:14. This was arguably a note to the person reading Mark to a congregation to emphasize the point about the temple's desecration. Why? Quite possibly because it was in process or had recently happened at the time of writing.
We will return to the question of the temple in chapter 7. For the moment, we want to show that the "worse and worse" dynamic of Mark 13 especially applied to the time leading up to Jerusalem's destruction by the Romans in AD 70. It may apply to the end times as well, but let's hear those verses first for their original meaning...
A decade or two ago, I wrote books by blogging through them. I'm not sure that this was a good practice, but it helped me picture an audience, which is a good thing when writing.
Several times over the last decades, I've also started a book on the end times. I've never finished it, of course. I have in mind a popular audience, particularly a Left Behind audience. I think I may have come to write a little too advanced for this audience. At the same time, my circles have become so populist that I wonder if my style has drifted from the more academic realm.
In any case, I'm trying to shake myself loose on this project, so I thought I'd blog a little on one of the chapters.
____________1. After nearly 2000 years in exile, Israel became a nation again in 1948. It sent shock waves through the prophecy world. Many believed that it signaled the beginning of the final generation of people on earth before Jesus would return and the end times would begin. Several passages in the Old Testament talk about the gathering of Israel back to its land. Here are a few:
Jeremiah 31:10: “Hear the word of Yahweh, O nations, and declare it among the coastlands from afar. And say, ‘He who scattered Israel will gather him, and keep him like a shepherd his flock.’”
Ezekiel 36:24: “I will take you from the nations, and I will gather you from all the lands, and I will cause you to come to your land.”
Ezekiel 37:21-22: “I am taking the children of Israel from the midst of the nations to which they have gone, and I will gather them from around and I will cause them to come to their land. I will make them one people on the hills of Israel. And one king will be king over them all. they shall no longer be two peoples, nor will they ever be divided into two kingdoms again.”
2. The problem with these three passages is that none of them were actually about today. They were all fulfilled already in 538 BC. In that year, the Persians allowed the Jews to return to their homeland and reestablish Israel as a political entity. Many of them did. In 516 the temple was rebuilt, and in the late 400s BC, the walls of Jerusalem were rebuilt.
Jeremiah and Ezekiel both wrote during a time when Israel was in exile (more specifically, the southern kingdom of Judah). The Babylonians had come and pounded them. They had destroyed Jerusalem. They had destroyed the temple. They had taken the elite away to a far-off country. Some had gone down to Egypt to escape. Some even built a temple there for Yahweh. When Jeremiah and Ezekiel wrote, Israel was scattered.
Meanwhile, the Assyrians had scattered the northern kingdom of Israel a century and a half earlier. Israel had been divided into two kingdoms, a northern one called Israel and a southern one named Judah. In 722 BC, the Assyrians came in and wiped out the kingdom to the north.
So, Israel was scattered in the early 500s BC when Jeremiah and Ezekiel prophesied. They both predicted rightly that God would bring Israel back from the nations. And he did. In 539 BC Cyrus, king of Persia, pounded the Babylonians (see Isa. 45:1). The Jews returned.
3. So these passages were not, in the first place, about modern times originally. However, could they also be about modern times? In other words, a double meaning?
We see the phenomenon of double meanings throughout the New Testament. Some have called this phenomenon a "sensus plenior" or taking the words of the Old Testament in a "fuller sense" than they were originally intended. A good example of this dynamic is when Jesus warns of the "abomination that causes desolation" in Mark 13:14. We'll return to this verse in chapter 7 for a fuller exploration.
This verse also was not originally about modern times. In fact, the verse has already had two fulfillments. The first was in 167 BC when the Syrians defiled the Jerusalem temple by offering a pig sacrifice on its altar and erecting an altar to Zeus within it. This was the original referent of Daniel 11:31.
However, as we will see, the context of Mark 13:14 points instead to the defilement and destruction of the temple in AD 70. The beginning of Mark 13 makes it clear that the topic under discussion is when that temple will be destroyed. This event happened in AD 70.
Accordingly, this verse in Daniel has already had two fulfillments. Will it have a third? Time will tell. But before we go too far along that road, we should know that there is nothing that would lead us to expect another fulfillment. We will talk more about that question in chapter 7.
4. So, Old Testament passages apparently can have more than one fulfillment. Is Israel becoming a nation in 1948 another fulfillment of these verses? Far be it from me to say that it is not. God can fulfill Scripture however he wants to.
However, I am not sure that everyone who thinks so has actually reckoned with the fact that it has already been fulfilled. The first and primary fulfillment took place 2500 years ago. There is no need biblically for another fulfillment.
Someone might argue that some aspects of these passages remain unfulfilled. For example, not every Jew returned to Israel. On the other hand, it doesn't really say that every Jew would return. And, of course, far from every Jew has returned even today.
Israel did not generally have a king after the return either, and there was never a clear return of the northern kingdom to the land. We will think more about the fulfillment of Ezekiel in later chapters. Israel did briefly have a couple kings. In the early first century BC there were some kings of Israel, and Herod the Great was a king. Under Herod's rule, both north and south were united.
In later chapters, I will argue that Ezekiel cannot be precisely fulfilled because Hebrews and Revelation indicate God's glory will never fill an earthly temple again. This is not a problem because prophecy is often fulfilled in ways that were blurry to the prophet but that become clear in hindsight. Since we have the New Testament (and history), we know the precise fulfillments.
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Thanks. That helped get my juices flowing. Any suggestions about style or tenor are welcome!
