Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Exegetical Eschatology

I've always been interested in "End-Times" prophecy...

In seminary we were taught to believe the "Premillennial Dispensationalist" model of Eschatology. This view comes ripe with myriad charts and diagrams describing when and where End-Time prophecy will be fulfilled. It also comes with the ability to strike fear into the hearts and minds of people everywhere by threatening that if they are not right with God they could be "left behind." According to Tim LaHaye, Dispensationalisms favorite son, those who are left behind will suffer (along with the Jews, of course) the greatest tribulation this world has ever known. There'll be stars falling from the sky, water turning into blood; there'll be a one world government, a one world currency, and computer chips imbedded in the hands or foreheads of people everywhere in order that the Anti-Christ can keep track of everyone. If you listen to Jack Van Impe, he'll tell you that we'll also be having sex with robots and living on Mars.

As you can tell, I find this model of Eschatology very nonsensical. What is even more fascinating than the grand-scheme of events that Dispensationalists have wrenched out of the Word of God, is the large number of people who adhere to this way of thinking and interpretation of Scripture. Men like Hal Lindsey, Tim LaHaye, John Hagee, and Jack Van Impe are all major proponents of the Dispensationalist convention. These men are indeed great men who love the Lord and do anticipate the soon return of our Lord Jesus Christ in order that he might set up a Kingdom and restore order and peace to a war-ravaged world. I myself am the pastor of a small rural church and compared to these men my list of accomplishments seems rather insignificant. I'm not a prolific writer. I have not grown a mega-church. And I'm certainly not on television. So what gives me the right to criticize these proponents of Pre-millennialism? The simple fact that "error gives birth to error."

For decades the myth concerning a secret coming of Christ, where He "raptures" his Bride and whisks them away to mansions in glory in order that he might unleash His judgement on the earth and on the Jews for rejecting Christ as Messiah, has dominated the way the North American church interprets apocalyptic literature.

This myth was started in 1831, the same year Darwin was fabricating the myth of evolution and natural selection and Joseph Smith was fabricating the Book of Mormon, by John Nelson Darby. At the beginning of the 19th Century, Darby fabricated the myth that God has two distinct people, with two distinct purposes, and two distinct destinies.

Darby describes these two peoples as the Bride of Christ (the church) and national Israel. He believed that after the death and resurrection of Christ and the founding of the New Testament church on the Day of Pentecost, that God started a new "dispensation" where He would work to bring the apostate and obstinate Israel together with His glorious Bride, the church. The culmination of that work, Darby believed, would happen when the Jews were re-gathered to their homeland and subsequently exposed to myriad tribulations and tortures at the hands of a false-Messiah. Many believe that this tribulation at the hands of a false-Messiah will prove once and for all that Jesus was the Christos and that their rejection of him was a big mistake. It would stand to reason that what proved Jesus as Messiah was the destruction of the Jewish Temple in 70AD which Jesus predicted would happen in Matthew 24. Contrary to faithful interpretation of Scripture, Dispensationalists would have you believe that Jesus was talking about the destruction of a 21st Century temple. You can see how nonsensical this eschatalocial model really is.

In 1948, when Israel once again became a sovereign nation, the frenzy began. People began speculating that the Temple would be rebuilt, the Rapture of the church was about to happen, and that anti-Christ was alive and planning his coronation as King of the World. With the advent of every new technology came the words of some fundamentalist preacher that this was the sign spoken of by the prophet John in the book of Revelation. With the success and popularity of the television came speculation that this was the medium by which the whole world would be able to hear the gospel and also by which we could all see the bodies of the Two Witnesses, whom the anti-Christ would refuse burial, lying in the streets of Jerusalem. (I am, of course, paraphrasing the words of Jesus as recorded in Matthew 24 and the words of John in Revelation 11) and on and on the unbridled speculation continues.

Now, I must admit, there was a time when I believed the same things as Hagee and LaHaye (if for no other than I didn't know another way existed). I was perpetuating the error. For years I taught the youth groups I pastored about "God's Redemptive Plan" according to "Charting the End-Times" by Tim LaHaye, not according to the Bible. For months I taught an adult Bible study using misinterpretations of my Savior's words about the destruction of the Temple as the study source. I have even given money to support an effort to re-gather the Jews to their homeland in Palestine in order to be a part of the fulfillment of apocalyptic prophecy. Now that I think about it, how arrogant am I to try and force God's hand and also, how evil am I to be a part of corralling the Jews back into Jerusalem so that I can be "Raptured" and they can face annihilation at the hands of the Beast? It just all sounds so confusing and ridiculous.

I could write for hours concerning this subject, but for now I will publish this post and see how you respond.

Think about it...


1 comment:

m@moss said...

I love N.T.
I haven't read any of his books but I have read many a quote. He is a great thinker.
I don't know if I'm Pentecostal anyway.
Don't tell anyone.
Hahaha.