Tag: eschatology

We have a long way to travel on our journey through the various Scriptures in order to come to a settled place of understanding and we will need patience. In these previous posts I have urged caution about trying to make (Old Testament) Scriptures fit into the world that we know. They were written into a context; they were not written to us. The nature of the prophecies are not to be understood as simple predictions but as promise that are expressed within their world; the fulfilments of those promises will exceed the literal words.We exercise caution as we read the text and must allow the New Testament to be the lens through which we read Old Testament texts of hope. All the promises are in Jesus, and it is for this reason that the first eschatological event, the first horizon is the crucifixion.

The second horizon, the events that take place some 40 years later will be where the focus of the writings go.

Patience, and allowing the Bible to be there for us, while acknowledging it was not written to us. The words of Jesus (Matt. 24; Luke 21 & Mark 13) were spoken around 30AD and were deeply impactful for those people.

[In this post I will refer to ‘horizons’. This concept is not a new idea but describes a viewpoint, a perspective looking forward. Mountain ranges can be hard to separate one from the other, so the concept is of a blurring of the future so that there only appears to be one ‘horizon’ or the separation of the ranges so that there are multiple horizons. I owe the clarity of this to Andrew Perriman, though our view of what the horizons are differs. I am just too much of a ‘conversion of Constantine was ever so bad’ kind of person to go with Christendom as a fulfilment of hope!]

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If we say that ‘Jews believed’ or the ‘Jewish hope was…’ we do have to realise that the Jewish faith was not monolithic, so we have to make allowances for divergent beliefs. We see this with the hope for a Messiah. That could vary from a Messiah who would be royal, or a Messiah who would be priestly, or two Messiahs, or none! Somewhat varied. However, it is certainly not wrong to suggest that widespread among Jews was the hope for an intervention of God (whether through the agency of Messiah or not) that would put all things right and fulfil the hopes of Israel, thus restoring the kingdom to Israel.

This age would end and the age to come would be present (the word often translated ‘eternity’ is simply the word for ‘age’, eternal life being life of ‘the age to come’; the shock of the New Testament was that the life of the age to come was being offered in the here and now). There might be a process involved in this coming age being present but there would be a definite before and after. We can represent this as a ‘one horizon’ view:

The hope was simple – a one horizon view – that God would intervene. It might take place over a period of time but the result would be the end of this present (evil) age, the restoration of Israel, the rule of God over the nations, the kingdom of God would have arrived.  Into that there was a predominant view that God would resurrect the righteous to benefit from the new era. Finally, it should be noted that all of the above would occur within this world, the idea of this being a celestial experience in heaven was not held.

There were expectations and hopes for the intervention of God at various times in history and certainly there was a lively expectation expressed in the opening pages of the New Testament. John was asked directly if he was the Messiah. Jesus prophesied that in the years after the crucifixion there would be Messianic figures who would arise. The hopes were alive for the intervention of God for the overriding view was that in spite of a return to the land they were not free; Israel was an occupied land, the people were far from being ‘the head not the tail’. A return to the land did not signify the end of the Exile. 

In 587 Jerusalem was destroyed along with the temple by Babylon. The prophets spoke of the hope for the end of exile, and indeed after a span of time some did return, a temple was built, but it was inferior to the one that had been destroyed. Later the land became subservient to the Greek then the Roman empire. The question continued as to when God would intervene.

The two disciples on the way to Emmaus verbalised how their hope had been in Jesus as being the one who would bring about the restoration, they were living (as were the other disciples) with that one horizon viewpoint:

The things about Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, and how our chief priests and leaders handed him over to be condemned to death and crucified him. But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel (Lk. 24:19-21).

Within the Jewish world there were those who spoke of the exile as continuing, This perspective is explicitly stated in the inter-testamental work of Baruch:

So to this day there have clung to us the calamities and the curse which the Lord declared through his servant Moses (1:20)

and again

See, we are today in our exile where you have scattered us, to be reproached and cursed and punished for all the iniquities of our ancestors, who forsook the Lord our God (3:8).

So although there was a stream that rejoiced that there had been a return to the land after Babylon the verdict of history was of the Exile, at least in part, continuing. The same ‘exile is continuing’ is framed in Matthew’s Gospel. Jesus will forgive his people (Jews) their sins (the reason for the Exile / oppression) and in his person God will be with them, for his name was to be Emmanuel.

The hope then we can express as looking to the future and somewhere on the horizon there would come ‘the restoration of all things’.

The transformation of the one horizon perspective

The coming of Jesus greatly changed the ‘one horizon’ view. What was not embraced was the death of Messiah, for Messiah was to conquer all the enemies of God’s people and purpose, not be conquered by them. The crucifixion was not visible as part of Messiah’s journey to (for example) Peter, who saw Jesus as the Messiah, ‘the Christ of God’. After proclaiming that Jesus was the Christ he then rebuked Jesus for indicating that death in Jerusalem lay ahead. Only a failed (and hence a false) Messiah could be sentenced to death. There was no concept within the one horizon perspective for the crucifixion, indeed it could not be so as anyone who was hung on a tree was considered ‘cursed’, and Messiah certainly could not be cursed (Deut. 21:23; Gal. 3:13).

The death of Jesus at Easter / Passover was not foreseen, indeed it was resisted, and when it took place it destroyed their hopes. The other side of the resurrection, the death on the cross was seen as the defeat of all enemies, even the ultimate enemy, death itself, and this defeat of death was essential as the original story had been that death entered the world through the sin of humanity.

This new horizon gave sight to a God who intervenes not to destroy the perceived enemies of Israel but the spiritual forces that captivated Israel (and the nations). This immediately shifts our understanding of the promises of God within the Old Testament narrative. The resurrection taking place in a garden surrounded by death speaks loudly (as does the identification of Jesus by Mary as ‘the Gardener’) that the crucifixion was restoring the original commission, the possibility now of working to bring creation to a place of restoration was present.

We might take the various events from the cross, the resurrection, the ascension and pentecost as one event, indeed so they are as they all flow together, but if I separate out pentecost we really have a re-enacting of the creation of humanity. Taken from the dust, the life of God being breathed into them, so that they, as community, might be a new humanity. We can take pentecost as a new horizon or part of the same horizon.

From the breathing into those first disciples a movement is released with the last word of Acts being ‘unhindered’, we understand a movement that was always anticipated to continue, not a movement that would fade out. The breath is a new creation, but the mandate from that first creation is picked up. Subduing the earth and multiplying. The growth and expansion is clearly noted throughout Acts. We read phrases such as:

• Added to their number (Acts 2:47).
• But many of those who heard the word believed (Acts 4:4).
• A great number of people would also gather from the towns around Jerusalem (Acts 5:16).
• You have filled Jerusalem with your teaching (Acts 5:28).
• The word of God continued to spread; the number of the disciples increased greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests became obedient to the faith (Acts 6:7).
• Samaria had accepted the word of God (Acts 8:14).
• Proclaiming the good news to many villages of the Samaritans (Acts 8:25).
• He proclaimed the good news to all the town (Acts 8:40).
• Meanwhile the church throughout Judea, Galilee, and Samaria had peace and was built up. Living in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it increased in numbers. (Acts 9:31).
• This became known throughout Joppa, and many believed in the Lord (Acts 9:42).
• But the word of God continued to advance and gain adherents (Acts 12:24).
• Thus the word of the Lord spread throughout the region (Acts 13:49).
• This continued for two years, so that all the residents of Asia, both Jews and Greeks, heard the word of the Lord (Acts 19:10).
• So the word of the Lord grew mightily and prevailed (Acts 19:20).
• Without hindrance (Acts 28:31).

Multiply and fill the earth, a new humanity with the breath of God living among the ‘animals’, both domestic and wild (beasts). From the creation narratives the nations were understood to be like animals and some of them – those who sought to oppress others – were described as beasts. This multiplication was taking place throughout all the nations of the earth, the earth was being subdued, not through some top-down force of will, but through a people who were understanding that they were to love, nurture and inspire a bending of powers to heaven’s ways.

A transformation of understanding of that one horizon expectation. The cross was necessary to defeat the powers, to enable the release of those carrying the breath of the Spirit to partner together, and with heaven, in ‘subduing the earth’ and ‘multiplying’.

The ultimate horizon

There are two horizons beyond the pages of Scripture: one we might call the ultimate one – the parousia; the visible appearing of Jesus (‘he will appear a second time’ Heb. 9:28).

This of course is what most people mean when they talk about eschatology, but they often focus more on a set of events that will take place, with the return of Jesus the appendix to a set of events. It is questionable if a set of events that take place in the so-called end-times are indicated in Scripture. What is pointed to is not a set of events but a final appearing of Jesus that ushers in the ‘new heavens and the new earth’, the time when all things are ‘made new’ (not ‘all new things are made’!), that brings about the fullness of the restoration of all things.

I have written about an end-time horizon, from that first Easter to the breath of God into human clay on the day of Pentecost; and in the preceding paragraphs I have written of an ultimate end-time horizon: the parousia of Jesus. Between that first and final horizons lie one other horizon. It is important to grasp this for without that understanding we are likely to try and make some major extensive words of Jesus concerning Jerusalem’s future fit into some end-time scheme. The words of Jesus (as recorded in Matt. 24; Mark 13 and Luke 21) are addressing a future that unfolds after the majority of Scripture has been written and some 40 years after Jesus died. It is important to note those events.

AD70: the fall of Jerusalem

Prior to that final horizon breaking in on us there is an event that was ultra-traumatic, an event that certainly was not anticipated and certainly would never have been seen as a God-intervention. The concept of the total destruction of Jerusalem could only be understood as a major setback and a killer-blow to hope. The war with Rome (66-70AD) occurs after the majority of the writings that we now have that we term the New Testament (I date Revelation, at least in the form that we have, as being later than 70AD and is addressing a different context, the fall of Imperial power), so we do not have details of that war within the pages of the New Testament but we do have clear predictions concerning it.

When we talk of the ‘end of the age’ we should not think primarily of the destruction of everything related to this world, but of such a transition from one era to the next that the world as was known would come to an end. Such was the effect of the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple in AD70. It felt like the end of the age, for it was the end of the age, the end of the ordering of the world as it was – it marked a significant before and after.

If we do not take note that many of the Scriptures relate to the period between the first Easter event and the fall of Jerusalem (40 years, the suggested length of a generation) we will universalise those Scriptures and miss the narrative that is being unfolded. Conversely, if we allow those Scriptures to speak into their context we will follow the trajectory of the narrative and allow all Scripture that was not written to us to be powerfully available as being for us.

Jesus in his prophecy concerning the fall of Jerusalem states that this will take place within a generation,

Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all things have taken place (Lk. 21:32).
Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place (Matt. 24:34).

And in Acts as the proclamation is made to those within Jerusalem we find that there are texts that fit right into how the listeners are to respond. They are to save themselves from ‘this generation’ (Acts 2:40) otherwise they will be ‘will be utterly rooted out of the people’ (Acts 3:23). It is this context that we have to place the declaration that,

There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among mortals by which we must be saved (Acts 4:12).

Yes it has universal application, but the context is to Jews who could claim Abraham as their ‘father’, the one who was given the covenant of circumcision in which they were included. Something had shifted; Messiah had come; salvation was now in Messiah’s name.

The fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple was devastating. In the closing days of the resistance the Romans were crucifying up to 500 at a time within sight of the walls; cannibalism was taking place inside the city; the corpses of those who died were being thrown over the walls into the valleys outside (one of which was the valley known as Gehenna – often translated as ‘hell’). Jesus warned of what was to come, which Luke records in straightforward language that Gentile converts who were not so accustomed to the language of Daniel (‘the abomination that causes desolation’) could understand:

When you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation has come near (Lk. 21:20).

A generation after that first Easter there was truly the end of an age. Time was called, but as we read in Acts, the proclamation of the kingdom of God and the teachings about Jesus continued unhindered.

There is no temple in the eschatological vision of John. 

I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb (Rev. 21:22).

He sees a city, but a city with no temple; no separate holy space because the presence of God and of the Lamb are there in fullness.

At the time of the crucifixion there are creational signs such as an earthquake and an eclipse of the sun; there are temporal disturbances that affect the realm of the deceased; and there is a huge sign in the Temple when the curtain, that separated the holy of holies, was torn apart. The ultimate holy space was no longer separate from creation. The temple in process of being constructed (or better that is in process of growing) is described in Ephesians. It is a temple that is not of one physical stone placed upon another, but of one person being joined to another as each building block is aligned to Jesus ‘the cornerstone’. 

But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he is our peace; in his flesh he has made both into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us, abolishing the law with its commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new humanity in place of the two, thus making peace, and might reconcile both to God in one body through the cross, thus putting to death that hostility through it. So he came and proclaimed peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near, for through him both of us have access in one Spirit to the Father. So then, you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone; in him the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are built together spiritually into a dwelling place for God (Ephes. 2:13-22).

To suggest that this work will eventually be expressed in a rebuilt temple in Jerusalem would be to suggest a symbol that belongs to the past will be restored as a fulfilment! The fulfilment is the presence of God in and throughout the whole earth.

Matthew’s Gospel is wonderfully focused on ‘fulfilments’ of Scripture and it seems there is a deliberate shaping of the Gospel that frames the whole book within the ‘normal’ shape of the Jewish Scriptures as a whole. The Jewish Scriptures can be described as ‘the law, the prophets and the writings’, thus shaping the various scrolls into an order different to what we term the ‘Old Testament’. With that ordering we have ‘Genesis’ as the first scroll and ‘Chronicles’ as the last scroll. The opening words of Matthew:

An account of the genealogy (genesis: beginning / birth) of Jesus the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham.

An account of the genesis of Jesus. Surely in a book of fulfilments the first book of the Torah is alluded to. Jesus is the fulfilment of the whole of what has gone before, and when we come to the closing words (the Great Commission) of Matthew we have clear resonances with the closing words in the last book of the Writings. We read:

In the first year of King Cyrus of Persia, to fulfill the word of the Lord spoken by Jeremiah, the Lord stirred up the spirit of King Cyrus of Persia so that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom and also in writing, saying: “Thus says King Cyrus of Persia: The Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and he has charged me to build him a house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Let any of those among you who are of his people—may the Lord their God be with them!—go up.” (2 Chron 36:22,23).

Cyrus makes a claim to having received a level of authority that means he can commission people to go to Jerusalem to build God a house there and he proclaims that God will be with them. Matthew seems to consciously report the Great Commission as not simply echoing but transcending Cyrus’ commission.

And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Matt. 28:18-20).

The same themes:

• Authority, but an authority beyond that of Cyrus. Jesus has all authority within all creation.
• Direction: but not going to Jerusalem, but going from it and the scope is universal (all nations).
• Presence: the intimate and committed presence of Jesus is promised.

And what is being ‘constructed’? In both cases a temple, but this one that is of disciples from all nations, the presence of God filling all creation, the glory of God coming to cover the earth. This commission being the means by which the eschatological temple will be finally manifested. Thus the ‘Great Commission’ and the ‘Creation Mandate’ are one and the same, to multiply and fill the earth with the image of God (indicating how important humanity is). Images, biblically, point to what they image and draw what they image to themselves. ‘Even so come, Lord Jesus.’

Ezekiel’s temple vision

In the closing chapters of Ezekiel there are detailed descriptions of the eschatological temple that expressed the future hope. Those visions certainly influenced John in Revelation, who saw ‘no temple’ in the eschatological fulfilment, and given the texts in Ephesians and the structure of Matthew’s Gospel it would be strange indeed if Ezekiel should be used to fuel a hope of a rebuilt temple in Jerusalem. I suggest we cast a look at Ezekiel as it will also underline why I do not try and make OT prophecies into a literal fulfilment but seek to understand them as promise.

Ezekiel can be divided into two. The first part begins with Ezekiel in Exile and by the river he sees the glorious throne of God in Babylon. The idolatry in Israel has caused the glory to depart the Temple in Jerusalem. Into this he prophesied judgement, judgement on Israel, the nations and on Jerusalem, and within the proclamations of  judgement we encounter a wonderful section of hope that God will give Israel a ‘new heart’ and will put his Spirit within them (Ezek. 11: 14-21). There is a transition in chapter 34 that picks up on that restoration hope. God will restore and just as Ezekiel has spoken of judgement on Israel and the nations he now speaks of hope for Israel and the nations… and beyond the nations for creation.

The hope for Israel is in a new David being raised up (surely that fulfilment is in Jesus as the ‘Good Shepherd’). The nation is depicted as corpses lying in a valley, but being raised up with the breath of God within them. This restoration is followed by the judgement on the nations – symbolically referred to as Gog (the leader) and a group of nations – that oppose God. The re-ordering of the world is in view, and it is in that context we have those final visions of a renewed Temple. Ezekiel is shown around this temple which is beyond anything that has gone before, beyond Solomon’s Temple.

The glory had departed the Jerusalem Temple with the Babylonian exile, but the glory returns to this new (future) temple in chapter 43. He then sees a mighty river flow from that future temple bringing life to the most dead of places. Trees will grow, their leaves providing healing.

It might be possible to postulate that this vision of the future temple is to be fulfilled literally in the future, but the whole vision seems beyond that. John in Revelation is deeply influenced by Ezekiel’s temple vision, and he moves beyond even what Ezekiel recorded; John describes a city where there was no temple. He includes, among other aspects, the trees with healing in their leaves and at the conclusion of John’s words he writes:

But the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him (Rev. 22:3).

The throne of God that Ezekiel had seen had departed from Jerusalem returns to the Temple (Ezekiel). John has the throne within the city, for there is no temple for it to return to. Nowhere does Ezekiel say that the city is Jerusalem – the city is called:

And the name of the city from that time on shall be, The Lord Is There (Ezek.48:35).

For John God (and the Lamb) is there within the new Jerusalem. The presence of God in the new city that comes down from heaven (Revelation) is where God dwells. That city in Revelation is described without a Temple, and is measured and occupies the then known world. John, influenced deeply by Ezekiel, understands the fulfilment to be the presence of God within all creation.

Ezekiel is best understood as describing a future hope for the restoration of all creation, and when we read New Testament texts they take what Ezekiel saw and take it even further. The future temple inside a future city disappears. The temple and city become one, and one can even say the city and planet become one.