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EVENTS: Summer Youth Series (7 pm)

July 24 - Bammel (Lipscomb) July 31 - Southeast (ACU, Acappella)

"For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever" (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17).

Many, if not most, would agree that the Lord is coming again to gather the saints and take us to heaven. The details of this idea is where disagreements occur. Because of the dominance of one particular viewpoint, it effects the way many read scripture. All would agree that according to 2 Peter 3:12, the world will be burned up in the end. Let’s see if we can sort this out and present a not too familiar view.

The most dominant view is that of premillennialism and dispensational premillennialism. There are differences between the two but we do not need to go into great detail. Simply stated, this view has the rise of one called the "Anti-Christ," the return of the Lord and a reign of a thousand years literally, a period of tribulation, and finally, all will be together with God in heaven. They debate among themselves as to the exact details of when this or that will occur and how long it will be. For instance, there are pre-, mid, and post- tribulationalists. Turn on the radio or listen to the television preachers, and you will hear these views expressed. This is also an event driven theology. When something happens in the Middle East, many of these preachers go into high gear to "interpret" the events in light of Bible prophecy. Stringing verses of scripture from the Old and New Testaments together in rapid fashion, ignoring the context of those verses, they attempt to show the fulfillment of prophecy and the coming of the end.

Up until 1970, this view was very technical and did not have a big following. Then Hal Lindsay published a book called The Late Great Planet Earth, popularizing premillennialism and the rest is history. The current "Left Behind" series continues the popularity of this view. But like many things, it has some problems. As already stated, it is event driven. At one time, the USSR was a major threat to Israel and the world. Europe would become a ten nation unity that would join forces with Russia to attack Israel. The US was the eagle in scripture who would be on the side of Israel. Needless to say, Europe is falling apart and the USSR does not exist anymore. Dating has become popular in this view as well. Lindsay taught that one generation after Israel’s return to the land (1948), the Lord would return, which would be 1988. I have a book in my library called, 88 Reasons Why The Lord Will Return in 1988. So they admit that other events have to occur despite what Jesus said about not knowing the future (Matthew 24:36) and Paul saying that the Lord will return as a thief in the night.

The second view is that of postmillennialism. The idea here is that Christians must first establish a Christian society under Biblical laws, which would include both testaments. Once that has been accomplished, then the Lord will return to establish His reign. It is also called Christian reconstructionism or Christian theocracy. Again, there are some different shades in this view. A very small minority hold that Jesus has already returned. Postmillennialism was popular in the 1800s. Alexander Campbell and early Restoration Movement preachers held this view into the early 1900s. Society was progressing, discoveries being made to improve humanity, medical advances occurring, and so forth. Man was issuing a new world order of peace and prosperity. Then in 1912, the shipped that God could not even sink, sank. The sinking of the Titanic was a blow to this culture and theological idea of advancement. World War I put an end to the idea based not only on the weapons used (gas, machine guns, planes), but the enormous amount of death occurring in a brief period of time. Today, there are a few who advocate postmillennialism of some type but are not very well known. They are also very strong opponents of premillenialism.

The third view is amillennialism. This simply states that the Lord will return and we will be taken to heaven, judgment will occur, and we will be in heaven for eternity. This is the quiet view of many. This view sees apocalyptic literature as pictures that are vivid and violent, and are meant to be interpreted as such and not literally. It attempts to keep in context scripture. Some have drawn up an elaborate plan of what happens after death but before the return of the Lord including such things as a holding area for souls, soul sleep until the Lord wakes them up, and various levels of consciousness. This view has its problems as well. Some do not even bother studying Revelation because it just cannot be understood. Others read into Revelation seven periods of church history, and like the premillennialists, we are in the last period, right before the Lord returns. They also divide Matthew 24 into two parts, the first being the destruction of Jerusalem and the second the return of the Lord. This view tends to ignore the immediate first century context and read back into the Bible two thousand years of church history. This view is popular among churches of Christ.

As I stated in the first paragraph, all three views have some things in common. There is however another view most popular outside the US (1). The idea is based on Romans 8:18-25.

"I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that

We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth

First, Paul compares our sufferings with the suffering of creation. When Adam and Eve were punished because of their sin in the Garden, that introduced death not just to humanity but to the earth. What was in perfect harmony in the Garden became what we see today; magnificent, awesome, and destructive. Sin doesn’t just effect the one who commits the sin, but the innocent as well. In this case it was creation. Some animal died that Adam and Eve could have something to wear because they realized they were naked. This was not what God intended.

Next, we see that creation has hope in being liberated from decay. We see decay all around, from the destructive nature of hurricanes to trees dying by bug infestation to dust storms, etc. Like us, creation suffers in this cycle of life and death. It looks forward in hope to redemption, to being liberated from decay. How does creation do this? How does creation praise God (see Psalm 148)? The point is that God intends, at least as I read this, to redeem creation and restore the Garden, where all is harmony and fellowship with our Father as He walks in the cool of the Garden (see Genesis 3:8). N.T. Wright suggests this is God’s integration of the renewed heavens and earth as intended originally (2).

Finally, we see creation waiting in hope with us for our redemption, here an idea with future overtones. We have been redeemed in Christ, but still there is that final redemption when we will be untied with God. The scriptures speak in several places of a new heavens and a new earth (see Isaiah and Revelation). It also speaks of the new Jerusalem coming out of heaven to earth (Revelation 21). The idea is that God is going to be among His people for eternity. Our new bodies (1 Corinthians 15) will be resurrected bodies fitting for this new environment. The new, redeemed earth will be our new heaven and God will be with us (3).

That brings us back to 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17. The picture there is that of the Emperor coming home from a victory and the people, at the sound of the trumpet, going out to meet him, welcoming him, and bringing him into the city. We see this even today in various ways. People come out to cheer returning soldiers from war, welcome returning missionaries from their service, and taking our dead to their final resting place. Paul is drawing on the familiar of the people of his day to show how Jesus will return in triumph. I think that Paul had an idea that the Lord’s return was close in his day, since 1 and 2 Thessalonians were the earliest books written by him. The idea of the imminent return of the Lord faded in his later writings, though he still understood that the Lord would return. 1 and 2 Corinthians, written in the middle 50s and Romans, written shortly after that, have brief mentions of the return of the Lord (4). It becomes less an emphasis in his later letters (5).

I don’t know how much time we need to spend on the return of the Lord. Expectations are always high at certain points but expectations can cloud our views and interpretations. The expectations of the coming Messiah were that of a conqueror, not One who would save the world from sins. It clouded their ideas. The Lord is coming back and the rest is up to Him (6).

George B. Mearns

(1) see Jim McGuiggan, Romans, Montex, Lubbock; N.T. Wright, New Heavens, New Earth, Grove Books Limited [ebook], Cambridge, 2002. Jim is an Irishman who has taught in the states but resides in Northern Ireland. N.T. Wright is a leading conservative theologian and a bishop in the church of England.

(2) Wright, ibid.

(3) Jehovah’s Witness see the earth remaining. However they think that 144,000 will go to heaven to be with God and the rest remain here. The idea comes from two texts in Revelation that they have not read very carefully because those going to heaven are virgins. This group is a cult which views Jesus as "a god," coming from a second century heresy called Arianism. We do not reject an idea because of those who hold it, in this case that the earth remains.

(4) Many scholars think that Paul’s view of the imminent return of the Lord affected his writings. In part I agree, but again, it faded as he neared the end of his life. Interestingly, John does not deal much with the return of the Lord in John, 1, 2, 3 John. Revelation is up for debate though I think it was written for the persecuted churches of the first century.

(5) N.T. Wright’s view is different from postmillennialism. He sees Christians living a radical lifestyle and influencing society with such, and while he sees Christians influencing all areas of culture, he does not accept the idea of a Christian theocracy as seen in postmillennialism.