Chalcedon Blog

Therefore, when they had come together, they asked Him, saying, "Lord, will You at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?" Acts 1:6

Beside our modern debates regarding the "end times," I know of no other period in church history where there was more confusion concerning eschatology than in the first century. This flies in the face of all "creedalists" and patriarchal theologians. Meaning: we tend to think that those closest to the time of Christ, and the early church, possess the best vantage point in theological interpretation. In short, Justin Martyr and Polycarp know better because they lived nearer to the times of the early church.

This argument is not tenable. The Acts passage cited above is proof of that. According to Acts 1:3 Jesus "presented Himself alive after His suffering, by many infallible proofs, being seen by them during forty days and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God." Despite this lengthy Bible study on the kingdom of God with the resurrected Christ the disciples were still preoccupied with a physical restoration of national Israel. In this way, even Christ Himself perpetually contended with the theology of Zionism.

This eschatological confusion would continue. Jewish nationalism became the primary stumbling block to the early church as those apostles who lived with our Lord struggled to comprehend the Holy Spirit's ceaseless efforts to bring in the Gentiles (c.f. Acts 10, 11:1-18, 15:1-31, 16:1-3, 21:17-27; Rom. 2:8-29, 3:1-31, 4:1-25, 9:30-31, 10:12, 11:11-12, 25, 15:8-16; Gal. 2:11-16, 3:6-8, 14, etc.).

Eschatological confusion also involved the repeated misunderstandings regarding resurrection and the coming of the Lord (i.e., the parousia). The church at Corinth sported an over-realized eschatology by engaging in an indulgence of tongue-speaking thinking they were using the language of angels (1 Cor. 13:1). In their mind the resurrection of Christ and the outpouring of the pentecostal Spirit defined the early church as the "resurrected" people of God. They denied, therefore, any further physical resurrections beyond Christ:

Now if Christ be preached that He rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then Christ is not risen: And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is in vain. 1 Cor. 15:12-14

The Corinthians did not deny the resurrection of Christ — they only rejected the idea of further resurrections "like unto" His. By doing so they were committing a gross error. Not the error of denying a physical resurrection so much as an error concerning the covenant. For to suggest that the fulness of the Kingdom had transpired prior to the destruction of Israel, and the absolving of the Old Covenant, these Corinthians were putting new wine into old wineskins. The New Covenant was not a patch on an old garment. The new Spirit was not new wine in old wineskin. Christ had to come to establish a new wineskin and a new garment.

A similar misconstruing was also rampant in Thessalonica. Only their confusion did not lead to the arrogance of the Corinthians. The Thessalonians were troubled by the idea that one had to be alive during the parousia in order to be resurrected:

But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. 1 Thess. 4:13-14

Paul assures the Thessalonian church that those are asleep will "precede" those who are living (v. 15-16). Paul's eschatology was to be a source of encouragement ( v. 18), not a reason for sorrow. The sadness stemmed from a misunderstand of the Pauline eschatology.

This pervasive warping of the resurrection was prevalent in Ephesus as well. Paul's warning to Timothy regarding the teaching of Hymenaeus and Philetus highlights again the insidious heresy traversing throughout the early church:

And their word will eat as doth an canker: of whom is Hymenaeus and Philetus; Who concerning the truth have erred, saying that the resurrection is past already; and overthrow the faith of some. 2 Tim. 2:17-18

Even the apostle Peter noted both the general confusion regarding eschatology as well as the specific theology of Paul. After his most detailed discussion regarding the perceived delay of the end times, Peter writes:

And account that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation; even as our beloved brother Paul also according to the wisdom given unto him hath written unto you; As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction. 2 Peter 3:15-16

My essential point is that if the disciples could sit under the direct teaching of Christ for 3 1/2 years, and then receive specific instruction about the kingdom of God for forty days after His resurrection, and still misconstrue their eschatology, then I am not surprised by the confusion that besets the church today. If the early church could continually misunderstand the eschatological teaching of the apostle Paul, then I respectfully withhold authoritative credence to the pre-Nicene church fathers. Eschatology is not as readily understood as some assume. The divergent views represented today by orthodox branches of the universal church is further evidence of that. Louis Berkhof, the Calvinist theologian, was correct in saying:

At the same time it must be said that there has never been a period in the history of the Christian Church, in which eschatology was the center of Christian thought. The other loci of Dogmatics have each had their time of special development, but this cannot be said of eschatology.[1]

I am dissatisfied yet still with the interpretations thus far developed within the reformed community. Even amongst the postmillennialists there is divergence regard the last days as both Rushdoony and Gentry espouse an extensive understanding of the last days while Bahnsen, DeMar, North, Jordan, and Chilton pushed for a delimited last days isolated to A.D. 30-70. And now a good many reformed man is overtaken with puppy love for the neo-historical Jesus scholar, N.T. Wright, and his reconstruction of the interpretative framework. I, however, find no desirable taste for a thinker who writes:

The real problem, therefore, for historians and theologians alike, is not that Jesus expected the end of the world and it failed to happen; nor that the first generation of Christians expected the return of Jesus (the parousia) within a generation and it failed to happen. Those are parodies of the real problem, which is this: Jesus interpreted his coming death, and the vindication he expected after that death, as the defeat of evil; but on the first Easter Monday evil still stalked the earth from Jerusalem to Gibraltar and beyond, and it stalks it still. To postpone the effectiveness of his putative victory to an after-life, as has been done so often in the Christian tradition, or to transform it into the victory of true ideas over false ones, as has sometimes been done within the idealist tradition, is to de-Judaize Jesus' programme completely. It is to fail to take seriously his stark prayer for the kingdom to come, and God's will to be done, on earth as it is in heaven.[2]

There are other options, Dr. Wright, that do not reek of idealism. This is a false antithesis. With all of bibliographic references featured in Wright's larger works I'm surprised he doesn't interact with a broader range of ideas. All the same, the postmillennialists have not taken the time to truly engage Wright, and the silence is deafening. To my knowledge, it has only been the full-preterists who have addressed Wright's concern; but they are too much on the fringe for a noblemen like Wright to take seriously.

Also, this is not an adequate distancing from Schweitzer; nor is it a satisfactory remedy to contemporary thinking about Christian praxis in light of the kingdom of God. This is made apparent by the smaller devotional works by Wright where it reads more like Oswald Chambers meets Marcus Borg. This is the result of eschatological confusion. A confusion which is still not resolved. Therefore, their remains an unrestful confusion for the people of God concerning ethics. How can I answer questions about living in God's world if I don't know the exact framework of that world? Am I in a new kingdom? New Covenant? Partial-covenant? Already but not yet? Or are we just trying to figure things out after realizing both Jesus and His apostles were "incorrect" in their eschatological predictions?

"Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?" This was the question offered to Christ after their brief season of discourse regarding the kingdom of God. These passages demonstrate to me that more revelation would have to be granted to the disciples via the ministry of the Holy Spirit. Christ is following divine order here and does not intrude into the Spirit's upcoming measure of rule. God would unfold His eternal plan by His own determination and in His own time. He would also allow confusion to enter in so as to becloud the teaching. As those reading these passages much later there is a clear sense in which God intends for us to glean something from this eschatological confusion. I feel it is similar in reason to that of the disciples awaiting further insight after Christ's departure.

God is forcing us into the text and encouraging a great reliance upon the Holy Spirit to aid in the hermeneutical enterprise. I don't find this kind of "spirituality" in the scholastic search for the historical Jesus. It is rank rationalism that tends to preside there. The disciples were told the times and seasons would not be given them. They were to wait for the Spirit. Their ministry and academics were to be framed by study and a great reliance -- or faith -- in the Holy Spirit. We also, as ministers of righteousness, must practice that same faith as we broach complicated subjects. But to question the foundational authority of Scripture is no demonstration of this faith. It is merely a transfer of infallibility to reason. This point is still one of Rushdoony's most significant contributions:

The doctrine of the infallibility of Scripture can be denied, but the concept of infallibility as such cannot be logically denied. Infallibility is an inescapable concept. If men refuse to ascribe infallibility to Scripture, it is because the concept has been transferred to something else.[3]

It is the assumption of the infallibility of man's reason that leads the historical Jesus scholar to demand eschatological texts bow to his demands. But the Word of God shall not be judged by man, for it is the infallible Word of the infallible God. Man is confused about his eschatology because he gives prominence to the "nature" of prophetic fulfillment. Man has a preconceived idea of "how" prophetic events are to unfold. If these preconceived ideas do not happen historically the theologian is driven to either question the veracity of the Biblical text or revise the meaning of time statements such as "at hand" or "soon." In other words, if prophecy is not fulfilled according to your liking you end up with either Albert Schweitzer or Hal Lindsey.

Confusion riddled the disciples that walked with Christ. Confusion befuddled the churches established by those same disciples. This, therefore, undermines any assurance that the patristic fathers are a reliable source for eschatological clarity. The creeds and councils, as noted by Berkhof, spent little time establishing an official statement regarding eschatology. We have much more work to do. As I mentioned, I am not satisfied with a good portion of what I've read. There are still significant questions to be answered. I have my opinions, but those are authoritative only to myself. I'd like to see more done by the reformed community concerning eschatology than merely correcting dispensationalists or running after Wright.

1. Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1939), 662
2. N. T. Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1996), 659.
3. R. J. Rushdoony, Systematic Theology (Vallecito, CA: Ross House Books, 1994), 2.