The End Was Near, Introduction
In a world of never ending crisis it seems end time speculation among certain sectors of the Church tends to rise to a fever pitch.
Christians are confronted with a plethora of end time books; some claiming to be nonfiction, others openly called fictional accounts, all of which promise the reader a key to understanding the times.
Whether one is reading popular fiction or "nonfiction" end time books, he is told that he may rest assured that the speculations put forth are based on a sound exegesis of the Scriptures.
Yet, does the Bible really tell us that we are living in the last days? After all, where in the Bible do we read, "in the year (fill in the blank) the Antichrist will arise" or "when you see an ethno-political Israel back in Palestine it means that the terminal generation has arrived" or "the signs described herein refer to the end of the 20th or the beginning of the 21st century" and so on? The truth is, the Bible never tells us that these days at the end of the 20th century are the last days.
In order to arrive at that conclusion, one must interpret the prophecies in a certain fashion.
The issue is interpretation and an interpretation by definition is open to criticism.
Of course, the writers of the popular end time books further assure us that their interpretations are correct - and if you disagree, your orthodoxy is suspect.
The questions are these: Is the interpretive approach embraced by the popular end time writers as sound as is claimed? Or, is it a misguided attempt to make the Bible prophecies "relevant" to our day? Is there reason to believe that the interpretive approach used by the popular end time writers is the most biblical? By what criteria do we judge an interpretive approach as biblical? God told us that His thoughts are not like our thoughts and that His ways are not like our ways (Is.
55:8-9).
Still, we have difficulty getting past a simplistic human approach to Scripture.
All to often we search for meaning that we would expect to find in the Word of God forgetting to consider that a transcendent God may have a different agenda, different "interests" than we.
We need to remember that the Bible is not about human experience but about God's revelation of Himself to man.
The purpose of the Word of God is not to entertain man with its powers of prediction but to glorify God.
God is radically different from us and so His way of thinking is radically different from the natural human way of thinking.
Certainly it is exciting to find reference to our contemporary experience in the Bible; nonetheless, it is a grave error to find nuclear missiles, super computers and scanning devises in the Bible due to our desire to find them there rather than their actually being there.
At the same time God is immanent.
That is to say that He is intimately involved in, and concerned with the affairs of human history.
He guides and fashions human history in order to bring about His purposes and to display His glory.
And, the Bible is written in a way which the (Holy Spirit illuminated) human mind can understand.
Therefore, the Bible is written so that we might think God's thoughts after Him.
This means that the Bible prophecies are not closed to all but a few penetrating minds - minds that are current on the state of affairs in Russia, China and modern Israel; the world of finance; technology and so on.
Any Christian who knows his or her Bible and who is led by the Holy Spirit is able to understand the eschatology of the Bible.
Ultimately nothing else is needed: it may be helpful to have a grasp of ancient history for instance, but it is not mandatory in order to understand the eschatology of the Bible.
The point is this: in order to understand God's Word, we must submit ourselves to the authority of the Bible and refrain from imposing on the Word of God our human reason and experience.
Yet, because of our over abundant self love it is difficult for us to accept that the things that are important and familiar to us may very well not be important to God.
Men of every age have been convinced that the eschatology of the Bible has to do specifically with their day.
It seems inconceivable to each succeeding generation that God would not choose to end history during their (oh so important) life time.
The way around such nonsense is to strive to remain within the interpretive framework provided by the Scripture itself.
This is more than simply saying that we first strive to understand what the text meant to the original audience or that we allow Scripture to interpret Scripture.
These are critical to be sure.
But more than that it means that we allow the Scripture to mold our very thought process so that we will be able to see and understand what the text meant to the original readers and so we will allow the Scripture to interpret itself.
Indeed, so that we will begin to think like God.
You see, it is not that the Bible is merely complex to the human mind, it's that it is impenetrable (1 Cor.
2:14-16).
Yet, as born again Christians we have the Spirit of God and the mind of Christ and so we do have the ability to read and understand the Bible.
However, our understanding is limited by the degree of Bible saturated thinking that we apply to our interpretation of the text.
A Holy Spirit guided, Bible saturated mind is not produced over night.
Therefore, we should be willing to change our views as we grow in maturity and understanding.
Our goal is to "grow up into all things into Him who is the head - Christ" (Eph.
4:15), and it is dangerous - sinful really - to believe that we have arrived, in any way, this side of glory
Christians are confronted with a plethora of end time books; some claiming to be nonfiction, others openly called fictional accounts, all of which promise the reader a key to understanding the times.
Whether one is reading popular fiction or "nonfiction" end time books, he is told that he may rest assured that the speculations put forth are based on a sound exegesis of the Scriptures.
Yet, does the Bible really tell us that we are living in the last days? After all, where in the Bible do we read, "in the year (fill in the blank) the Antichrist will arise" or "when you see an ethno-political Israel back in Palestine it means that the terminal generation has arrived" or "the signs described herein refer to the end of the 20th or the beginning of the 21st century" and so on? The truth is, the Bible never tells us that these days at the end of the 20th century are the last days.
In order to arrive at that conclusion, one must interpret the prophecies in a certain fashion.
The issue is interpretation and an interpretation by definition is open to criticism.
Of course, the writers of the popular end time books further assure us that their interpretations are correct - and if you disagree, your orthodoxy is suspect.
The questions are these: Is the interpretive approach embraced by the popular end time writers as sound as is claimed? Or, is it a misguided attempt to make the Bible prophecies "relevant" to our day? Is there reason to believe that the interpretive approach used by the popular end time writers is the most biblical? By what criteria do we judge an interpretive approach as biblical? God told us that His thoughts are not like our thoughts and that His ways are not like our ways (Is.
55:8-9).
Still, we have difficulty getting past a simplistic human approach to Scripture.
All to often we search for meaning that we would expect to find in the Word of God forgetting to consider that a transcendent God may have a different agenda, different "interests" than we.
We need to remember that the Bible is not about human experience but about God's revelation of Himself to man.
The purpose of the Word of God is not to entertain man with its powers of prediction but to glorify God.
God is radically different from us and so His way of thinking is radically different from the natural human way of thinking.
Certainly it is exciting to find reference to our contemporary experience in the Bible; nonetheless, it is a grave error to find nuclear missiles, super computers and scanning devises in the Bible due to our desire to find them there rather than their actually being there.
At the same time God is immanent.
That is to say that He is intimately involved in, and concerned with the affairs of human history.
He guides and fashions human history in order to bring about His purposes and to display His glory.
And, the Bible is written in a way which the (Holy Spirit illuminated) human mind can understand.
Therefore, the Bible is written so that we might think God's thoughts after Him.
This means that the Bible prophecies are not closed to all but a few penetrating minds - minds that are current on the state of affairs in Russia, China and modern Israel; the world of finance; technology and so on.
Any Christian who knows his or her Bible and who is led by the Holy Spirit is able to understand the eschatology of the Bible.
Ultimately nothing else is needed: it may be helpful to have a grasp of ancient history for instance, but it is not mandatory in order to understand the eschatology of the Bible.
The point is this: in order to understand God's Word, we must submit ourselves to the authority of the Bible and refrain from imposing on the Word of God our human reason and experience.
Yet, because of our over abundant self love it is difficult for us to accept that the things that are important and familiar to us may very well not be important to God.
Men of every age have been convinced that the eschatology of the Bible has to do specifically with their day.
It seems inconceivable to each succeeding generation that God would not choose to end history during their (oh so important) life time.
The way around such nonsense is to strive to remain within the interpretive framework provided by the Scripture itself.
This is more than simply saying that we first strive to understand what the text meant to the original audience or that we allow Scripture to interpret Scripture.
These are critical to be sure.
But more than that it means that we allow the Scripture to mold our very thought process so that we will be able to see and understand what the text meant to the original readers and so we will allow the Scripture to interpret itself.
Indeed, so that we will begin to think like God.
You see, it is not that the Bible is merely complex to the human mind, it's that it is impenetrable (1 Cor.
2:14-16).
Yet, as born again Christians we have the Spirit of God and the mind of Christ and so we do have the ability to read and understand the Bible.
However, our understanding is limited by the degree of Bible saturated thinking that we apply to our interpretation of the text.
A Holy Spirit guided, Bible saturated mind is not produced over night.
Therefore, we should be willing to change our views as we grow in maturity and understanding.
Our goal is to "grow up into all things into Him who is the head - Christ" (Eph.
4:15), and it is dangerous - sinful really - to believe that we have arrived, in any way, this side of glory
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