Heaven Can Wait

I know I have disappointed and perhaps alienated some of my church friends with my dismissal of their cherished view of end times known as dispensational millennialism (DM). Dismissal may be too harsh a word, but I have been asking probing questions and doing considerable research into the view for many years. I was predisposed to doubt the DM eschatology because I was not raised with it. The church I grew up in and the churches my wife and I attended during the early years of our marriage believed the amillennial position was a better way to understand end times prophecy. Our association with Baptist-type churches in our teaching careers introduced us to the DM approach.

A quick review of some the different views of Revelation might be helpful. Interpretation of the book is problematic because of its unusual nature. The title, Revelation, is a translation of the Greek title, Apocalypsis. The Bible has numerous apocalyptic passages, notably in Daniel, Isaiah, and Ezekiel. Apocalyptic literature is intentionally shrouded in mystery and filled with symbolism. The message, though rooted in the authors’ present, almost always pointed to things that would happen at some future time. Generally, the thrust of the prophecy was intended to be a warning or a rebuke to the authors’ contemporaries, but God’s love for His people was revealed in the final outcome.

John, the writer of Revelation, follows in the literary tradition of those Old Testament writers. The broad outline of John’s message can be understood by most serious Bible students. The issue that divides believers most dramatically is the timing of the fulfillment of the prophecy. The question of timing primarily revolves around the mention of a 1,000-year reign of Christ on earth found in chapter 20. The word millennium comes from the Latin word for 1,000, hence the diverging views became variations on their millennial interpretation.

There are three basic views of the millennium in Revelation with sub-classes in each. The dispensational millennial (DM) interpretation, the predominant view in many American churches, is premillennial, meaning that Christ returns to earth before His 1,000-year reign. The common DM teaching foresees a seven-year period known as the Great Tribulation just prior to the millennium. In the DM view, Christ will first come secretly, and the church will be raptured – caught up to Heaven – at some point relative to the Tribulation to be returned to Earth later to rule with Christ for the millennium. After the millennium Christ executes God’s final judgment and then He initiates the new Earth and new Heaven.  There was a simpler version of premillennialism held by some early church fathers, but it was ultimately discounted as heretical in the fourth century A.D.

The view which dominated church thinking about Revelation for centuries was known as post-millennialism. This view held that Christ would rule on earth for 1,000 years through the work of His church after which He would return for the final judgment. There are still a few believers who teach this interpretation, but the realization that the church is not bringing the mass of humanity to Christ, and the incessant wars and atrocities of the twentieth century have led many to believe post-millennial thought is not valid.

The third view of the millennium is called amillennialism because those who hold to this interpretation do not take the 1,000-year reign of Christ to be a literal, earthly period. Like most of the apocalyptic language in Revelation, the number 1,000 is considered symbolic of a long period of time. Amillennials believe that Christ has been reigning from Heaven ever since His victory over the enemy on the cross and His ascension to Heaven where He is seated at the right hand of God. It is similar to post-millennial thinking in that Christ comes as judge after the metaphorical millennial period.

Throughout church history, the majority of believers held a version of a- or post-millennialism. Still today, most of the church world-wide retains one of these views. It is only in America that the dispensational/millennial view (DM) has gained popularity. This situation can be traced directly to the influence of C.I. Schofield and his widely read Schofield Reference Bible, introduced early in the twentieth century. Schofield borrowed heavily from (some would say plagiarized) the work of Irish/English theologian John Nelson Darby. Darby was driven by the thinking of the Christian Zionists of his day, descendants of whom inhabit DM circles today, in his effort to find a place for physical Israel in the prophecies of the New Testament.

 Darby taught that Jerusalem must be reestablished as a home for the Jews, and the temple must be rebuilt with its sacrifices reinstated. This thinking gained serious traction when Israel was recreated from the ashes of World War II Palestine in 1948. Prophetic speculation has been rising ever since then, fueled more recently by the appearance of books like The Late, Great Planet Earth and the Left Behind series at the end of the twentieth century. Many American theologians have fallen under the dominating influence of institutions like Dallas Theological Seminary and Moody Bible Institute and others who teach the dispensational/millennial interpretation.

Several things about the DM interpretation of Revelation disturb me, chief among them is the importance placed on the reestablishment of a Jewish temple in Jerusalem. God made it clear to Israel that He would abandon them and the Jerusalem temple if they turned from following Him alone. They did just that several times throughout Old Testament history, then most dramatically when they refused to recognize their Messiah. At the dedication of Solomon’s temple, God spoke directly to Solomon with these words:

“But if you or your descendants abandon me and disobey the decrees and commands I have given you, and if you serve and worship other gods, then I will uproot the people from this land that I have given them. I will reject this Temple that I have made holy to honor my name. I will make it an object of mockery and ridicule among the nations. And though this Temple is impressive now, all who pass by will be appalled. They will ask, ‘Why did the Lord do such terrible things to this land and to this Temple?’ “And the answer will be, ‘Because his people abandoned the Lord, the God of their ancestors, who brought them out of Egypt, and they worshiped other gods instead and bowed down to them. That is why he has brought all these disasters on them.’” (2 Ch 7:19–22 NLT)

The ultimate disaster God brought upon Israel took place in 70 A.D. when the Roman army conquered Jerusalem and completely destroyed the temple. Paul makes it abundantly clear in Romans that a blood relationship to Abraham was never the mark of God’s true people. Only faithful obedience and trust in God qualified one to join God’s family. The true Israel, Paul asserts, is now made up of Jews and Gentiles who have recognized that saving righteousness is found in Christ alone. He does admit that if Jews believe, they can be grafted back into the tree of faith they had abandoned, but even in passages where he discusses Christ’s return, he makes no mention of Jerusalem or the temple. God’s judgment on apostate Israel and the abandonment of Jerusalem and its temple would seem to be complete.

Because of this, the temple in Paul’s thinking is the believer individually and the church corporately. Paul expressed this fact while the Jerusalem temple was still standing. In John’s Revelation, the New Jerusalem is a metaphor for the church and exists as a spiritual reality, not as a literal city floating above a new Earth. Paul and the writer of Hebrews state clearly that believers in their day (and by extension our day) had already come to the New Jerusalem. This fits perfectly with the idea that the Kingdom of God is a spiritual reality with Jesus reigning from Heaven over his body, the church. In this view, the millennium is now; the church age represents Christ’s reign on earth. There is no purpose for Jerusalem or the temple during Jesus’ reign. Those Old Testament physical realities have become New Testament spiritual realities.

I respect my Christian friends who follow a version of Darby’s dispensational millennialism. I disagree with them, but I respect their right to a difference of opinion. I only hope that while they wait expectantly for the rapture and all that they believe will follow it, that they don’t forget the overriding message of Revelation: Jesus’ followers have become involved in a cosmic battle for the right to rule the Earth. Whatever they believe about the end times prophecies, the present reality demands obedience to Jesus Great Commission: make disciples of all nations. As the saying goes: Heaven can wait. We have work to do here and now.

Related posts: Who’s in the Temple?; Why Heaven Matters; Canaan Cannot be Heaven