Crisis in Eschatology: The Last Days According to Jesus with R.C. Sproul

In this session we are going to begin a series in the field of

eschatology

. I know for some of you that term sounds a little technical, but it is a common term in theology and

eschatology

is a subdivision of systematic theology that is particularly concerned with the

last

things or the future things or what we call the

last

days

coming. from the Greek word for end times Now, when we enter the field of eschatology, we enter a fascinating topic but one on which there is very little consensus among Christians, there is probably more disagreement on matters related to eschatology among Christians than among all the other doctrines that tend to divide us together and because of that there has been something of a

crisis

in our time in terms of trying to understand the teaching of Scripture regarding future prophecy.

Now I need to warn you from the beginning that as I look at some of these eschatology issues in this series, I am going to take a position on eschatology that is a Minority Report and, in fact, will be a view on eschatology that Many, If not most of you listening to this may be hearing it for the first time and may even find it shocking to hear some of the positions I take because my own thinking on eschatological matters has undergone a transition from earlier times. I have sometimes gone through various stages in my own understanding of these things, and even in the case of today I do not do so with fierce dogmatism, because that is a dangerous thing with respect to eschatology, because the subject itself is very difficult now. .

I am going to basically follow the structure and pattern of the content that I laid out in this book titled The Last Days According to Jesus and then subtitled When Did Jesus Say He Would Return? So, as I said, there is less consensus in eschatology. than perhaps any other aspect of theology and we hear repeatedly about debates about the timing and nature of the millennium predicted in the book of Revelation, the question of the relationship of Old Testament Israel to the New Testament church, questions about the identity of this mysterious figure we call the Antichrist questions about the nature and timing of the rapture and the relationship between the return of Jesus and the biblical concept of the rapture now these are the kinds of questions that I assume most of us are aware of , but what I want to focus attention not only today, but throughout this series, on another

crisis

of eschatology that is often overlooked or ignored within the evangelical circles of the Christian Church, crisis that I believe is the most serious of all with respect to our understanding of future prophecy. and that crisis has to do with the question of credibility and it has to do with the credibility of two different objects, first of all it has to do with the credibility and reliability of the Bible itself, as I will try to show you and, secondly, It has to do with the credibility and reliability of the Bible itself, as I will try to show you.

I have to make it even more important with the credibility of Jesus himself and that is why I am concerned to look at what Jesus taught about the last things. I won't cover a lot of the common themes of interpretations of eschatology, for example, the Book of Daniel in the 70 weeks in the Old Testament and that sort of thing because I'm going to focus more on the New Testament and specifically the teachings of Jesus, for this reason the point that is often overlooked among evangelicals is that over the last 200 years there has been an unprecedented assault on the reliability of the Scriptures.

Now it is not that there was never a criticism of the Bible before the Enlightenment, but since the Enlightenment there has been a radical escalation of criticism directed against the credibility of the biblical documents and That attack has not simply come from outside the church, but that for the most part during the last century the weapons of criticism have been trained against the authority of the Bible from within the church. Now there are many reasons why higher critics direct their attacks. against the authenticity of the Holy Scriptures, but by far the number one central point of attack of higher criticism against the inspiration and authority of the Bible centers on issues related to eschatology.

It has been said that two-thirds of the content of the New Testament deals with future prophecy and if that prophecy is suspect with respect to criticism then, of course, that raises serious questions about our full understanding of the nature and credibility of the Bible. I will just give you a little personal anecdote in terms of my own experience in studies when I was a seminary student at an institution that was not known for its passion for Christian orthodoxy where I was exposed to most of the radical theories of our

days

about the Bible. There seemed to be no end to the professor's criticism of the integrity of the Bible.

Bible particularly with respect to the predictions found in the New Testament regarding the coming of Christ and the future events surrounding it, as I say, critics focused on these issues in their attack on the reliability of the Bible, now even more significant than the question of The credibility of the Bible is of course the credibility of Christ himself even outside the church there are those who, although they do not accept the deity of Christ, will affirm that he was a great teacher or that he was even a prophet but when we examine the future prophecies of Jesus, critics come to these and say that the prophecies that Jesus made regarding the future did not happen within the specific time frame that he said they would happen and if that is true, that is, if the prophecies of Jesus did not met on the deadlines he said they would happen, which would reduce Jesus to the role of false prophet, so let me pause for a second here and express my two biggest concerns in addressing these issues of New Testament prophecies have to do with the critical attack against the Bible on the one hand and against the teachings of Jesus himself on the other.

Let me illustrate this problem as we discover it not simply among biblical scholars, which we will see later. but as summarized in the famous criticism directed at Christianity by the British philosopher Bertrand Russell Russell published a little book entitled Why and I am not a Christian and in that book he gave a series of criticisms against historical Christianity against arguments in favor of the existence of God, etc., but he focused his attention on the central importance of Jesus to historical Christianity. He came to this problem by saying that, in his opinion, religion in general and Christianity in particular are positively harmful, the net impact on the human race and the safety of religion culture and civilization

according

to Russell has been negative.

All the religious wars and hostilities and fighting and prejudices and witches and all that that are part of the stain of church history, he puts them all together in one package and says the bottom line is that the net result is of religion is harmful and said he thinks it was doubtful that a Jesus of Nazareth ever existed, from a historical perspective. Russell doubted that Jesus would ever live. He now he is not alone in that. as we have seen many critical theories, particularly in the 20th century, in the various searches for the historical Jesus that have raised questions about whether Jesus is completely mythological and an invention of the biblical writers and never really existed in space and time and we have seen radical criticisms of the Jesus Seminar, even in our day, that play with the limits of this type of thinking, but at the same time Bertrand Russell made a distinction between the real historical Jesus that he does not believe we can know and the Jesus that is unknown to us. presented in the literature of the New Testament, particularly in the Gospels.

He now he had some good things to say about Jesus. He had a certain degree of respect for the moral character of Jesus, at least the Jesus who appears in the New Testament. Testament Documents, you know, I find it kind of fascinating as a parenthesis because even the fiercest critics of Christianity find it difficult to attack the personal integrity of the Jesus of the New Testament. On one occasion, George Bernard Shaw was criticizing Jesus for teaching one of the things he taught and said on this particular occasion Jesus did not behave like a Christian and I thought it was kind of funny that when he was doing this criticism he couldn't think of any standard. higher to judge Jesus than the standard of Jesus himself, but beyond that, Bertrand Russell said that although the Christ of the Gospels shows a high ethical and moral character, he does not show much wisdom, isn't it so interesting that this, who has been considered the greatest teacher who ever lived?

Bertrand Russell considered that he walked the earth not particularly wise now that his question about Jesus' wisdom focused primarily on Jesus' teachings about the future. Let me give you a quote from Bertrand Russell where Russell says and again I quote the one who is Jesus indeed. thought that his second coming would occur in clouds of glory before the death of all the people who lived at that time Jesus certainly thought that his second coming would occur in clouds of glory before the death of the people who lived at that time which is main criticism of Bertrand Russell and I might add that that is the main criticism of biblical critics and biblical scholars of the last 200 years, namely, that Jesus thought and thought that he would return, that it would appear that he would return, that his The parousia is coming where the manifestation of himself would occur within a certain period of time, a period of time that was restricted to the first century and the context of no more than 40 years from the time he predicted it now, the three texts to which the most scholars refer to. and all of which Bertrand Russell referred to in his criticism of the New Testament at this point are these, first of all, the statement that Jesus made to his disciples in Matthew 10:23 you will not have gone through all the cities of Israel to the Son of Man come here Jesus says that they, that is, the disciples, would not end their missionary reach beyond the sphere of all the cities of Israel before the Son of Man and the Son of Man is a title that is obviously the self- Jesus' favorite self. designation, he is clearly speaking of himself here until the Son of Man is quiet now how long did it take for the early church to finish its mission of spreading the gospel throughout the city of Israel long before the end of the first century?

It certainly did not take until the modern day for that mission to be completed and therefore here is a time frame that Jesus gives you, he will not pass through all the cities of Israel until the Son of Man comes. Now, secondly, there are some who are here who do not taste death until the Son of Man enters his kingdom now again Jesus addresses his contemporaries and those who crowded to hear him speak makes this statement some of you do not He is talking about us, he is talking to the people who were there. Listening to his prophecies, he told them that some of you will not taste death until the Son of Man enters his kingdom.

Now we'll look at that later and of course ask the question right away: what does Jesus mean by entering into his kingdom? kingdom was referring to his second Advent or was it referring to some other event, that is one of the questions we will examine but for now we will just remember that this is the second text that Bertrand Russell cites as evidence of the failure of Jesus prophesies that the third will be fulfilled , which is perhaps the most problematic of all and the one we will go to great lengths to examine in this series is the statement we find in the Gospel of Mark chapter 13 verse 30 in which Jesus declared to his disciples after having spoken in great detail about of his coming in glory that he said to quote this generation will in no way pass until all these things happen this generation will not pass until all these things are fulfilled or come to pass what What do you do with that?

The way evangelical scholars have handled these temporal references has in many cases been much less than satisfactory. It is certainly not satisfactory to critics who say that the clear and obvious form of Jesus' words in these texts is what he intended. manifest to return in glory within no more than one generation and in Hebrew terms a generation is now equivalent to approximately 40 years, in addition to these three critical texts Russell and others point to a number of other statements in Scripture that indicate that the church primitive, the apostolic community and certainly the apostle Paul, that all of these writers had a sense of urgency about the nearness or imminence of the coming of Christ and yet,

according

to critics, those things that Christ predicted would happen within a lapse of time.

It hasn't even been 40 years to this day. The book of Revelation, which is the favorite source for speculating about future matters and the return of Jesus, also contains references to time frames that we will see that speak of those things that must happen soon. pass and if the book of Revelation in most of its contents isrefers to the final consummation of Christ's kingdom and its final appearance in history, it is difficult to see since 2,000 years have passed since the book was written in some way that Let's examine this: what was promised to happen shortly can hardly take 2000 years and still considered short unless we spiritualize these words and speak of a day in the place of the lord as if it were a thousand years, so only two days have passed since the prophecies. etc., but in light of the teaching of the New Testament documents, it is clear that the early church, the early Christian community, had this urgent sense of expectation and, of course, Critics say that when time began to pass and these things did not occur as predicted, certain adjustments were made to their expectations so that as the later books of the New Testament appear there is more room left open for a long interval in previous history.

Compliance times take place, but that's the kind of thing we'll look at here, but the main concern of this series will be to focus on how we understand these time frame references that people have used to criticize credibility so much. of the Bible and the credibility of our Lord Himself