On End Times Prophecies

[Our churches] teach that at the Consummation of the World Christ will appear for judgment, and will raise up all the dead; He will give to the godly and elect eternal life and everlasting joys, but ungodly men and the devils He will condemn to be tormented without end.

They condemn the Anabaptists, who think that there will be an end to the punishments of condemned men and devils.

They condemn also others who are now spreading certain Jewish opinions, that before the resurrection of the dead the godly shall take possession of the kingdom of the world, the ungodly being everywhere suppressed.

That last bit refers to Millennialism, the notion that the saints will enjoy a thousand year reign on earth.  Premillennialists believe that Christ will come before His thousand year reign.  That means that the woes described in Revelation will happen before this period of earthly paradise, though Christians will be “raptured” away before the really scary stuff happens.  This view is taken for granted by most of the End Times preachers we hear on TV or the internet.

Postmillennialists believe that Christ will come after the thousand years of earthly paradise in which the church will reign.  This view was held by promoters of the “Social Gospel” in the 19th and 20th century, when mainline liberal theologians sought to bring “heaven on earth” through political activism.  It can also be found on the opposite political spectrum, among “dominionists” of both the Reformed and the Pentecostal variety.

Both kinds of millennialists focus on this world, as in the TV preachers who see “today’s news” as fulfilling Bible prophecy and in the political activists who seek to “take over the world for Christ” by setting up a theocratic political order.  Both are “Jewish opinions,” in that they see the Messiah as a political ruler of this world.

Millennialists approach the Biblical prophecies of the Last Days as symbolic, rather than as literal depictions of demonic and angelic forces at war, and what they symbolize is current events.  I remember when Henry Kissinger was said to be the Antichrist.  Then it was Mikhail Gorbachev (something about the “mark” on his head).  Today some are saying Vladimir Putin is the Antichrist. One day, when I was a boy, I was rummaging through my grandmother’s books and found one from the 19th century saying that Christ’s return was imminent, citing the same symbols and relating them to the current events of that day.  It occurred to me that the prophecies might well apply to every age, so that Christ could come back at any time.  Which is pretty much what Jesus says (Matthew 25:13).

The other signs of Christ’s return certainly apply to every period of our history, including our own times.  Wars and rumors of wars. False Christs.  Famines and earthquakes.  Lawlessness.  False prophets.  Persecution.  (See Matthew 24.)

These are all “signs,” signifying that the world is broken, that in this world we shall have tribulation, that, in the words of Tom Hughes the End Times preacher I talked about yesterday, we are experiencing “The Collapse of Everything!”

The point is, we are indeed in the End Times, which began at Christ’s Ascension.  This is a time of warfare between Christ and Antichrist.  And yet, Christ is reigning.  The church is reigning.

At any time, He could return to judge the living and the dead.  That prospect is terrifying for those who do not know Him.  But for those who do, their Judge will be the very one who took their judgment into Himself.  The dead will rise!  And we will receive “eternal life and everlasting joys.”

Perhaps all of these signs will intensify as the day approaches.  I am struck by statements that have a strange contemporary resonance, such as the “many will be offended” text that we discussed yesterday.  And there is this:

For behold, the days are coming when they will say, ‘Blessed are the barren and the wombs that never bore and the breasts that never nursed!’ (Luke 23:29)