The 3,000 Year-old Question

I could be wrong. (Those who know me are chuckling right here.) I could be, but I don’t think I am wrong. When I read the Bible front to back, it appears that God’s program proceeds without interruption for the most part. Oh sure, Adam’s sin interrupted what appeared to be the original plan for Eden, and mankind’s devolution leading to the flood caused a do-over of sorts, and Israel’s failure to be what God intended them to be led ultimately to the Cross and the final solution. But none of these course changes surprised God as evidenced by the fact that He explained at every stage what was going to happen next. In other words, He knew what He was doing. (Surprise!)

I am also aware that at any given point in the redemption timeline, those earth-bound players on God’s stage might have felt that God had lost His way. Adam lived some nine hundred years after being expelled from Eden and hearing the prophecy that his offspring would crush the Serpent’s head. How many hundreds of years did Noah preach righteousness before the flood caused Earth’s reboot? Joseph must have been frustrated by the decades he spent apparently out of the loop as a result of his brothers’ treacherous jealousy. Then his family languished in Egypt for 400 years waiting to return to the land God had promised them. Consider David, who was anointed king, but spent years running from Saul before he finally took the throne. Finally, the nation of Israel, or properly the remnant of the nation, did seventy years in Babylonian captivity, only to return to a diminished national state and sit in silence for 400 years.

I understand that God has His own time table. We are told more than once that with God, a day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years is as a day. Fine. However, it appears to me that His prophets explained what was going to happen in a more or less linear fashion, although it was often cryptic revelation. Looking back from our perspective, it all fits rather nicely, if somewhat drawn out. We get hints of God’s purpose occasionally. In the time leading up to the flood, God is said to have been striving with man; was he hoping for repentance? (Genesis 6:3) The 400-year sojourn in Egypt was because the iniquity of the Amorites was not yet fulfilled. (Genesis 15:16) Paul suggests that the church age will end only when the fulness of the Gentiles has been brought into the Kingdom. (Romans 11:25)

If some millennial theorists are correct (I withhold judgment.), before we reach the end-stage with Eden restored and Heaven comes to Earth, at least 1,007 more years must pass, at which time a final, global/cosmic battle with evil will bring all things to completion. Do the math. In 2018, we stand close to 2,000 years from the Cross of Calvary and the institution of the Church. If the literal millennial theorists’ proposed tribulation started today, there would be another 1,007 years to the New Heavens and New Earth of Revelation 21. Now someone might begin to wonder about God’s timing again.

This might be God’s plan; after all, it is only three days on His divine calendar. But it is a wonder to me that in the popular literal millennial scheme, the Church, which Paul calls the mystery of God, hidden through the ages, is largely ignored, relegated to a parenthetical gap in the imagined timeline. There are those who believe the language of the millennial reign of Christ is meant to be figurative rather than a literal number of calendar years. This places the Church age soundly within Bible prophecy rather than floating in some unnoticed parenthetical silence.

There is something interesting for any who believe Bible prophecy, no matter what opinion they hold regarding the millennium: we are nearing the 2,000-year mark after the Church was founded. I am stepping outside of teaching or preaching here; what I am suggesting is pure speculation on my part. I will not join the likes of those who insist Jesus came in 1917 or those who were disappointed when 1988 (1948 + 40) came and went without the expected events. What I am doing is looking at the broad sweep of Biblical revelation and seeing roughly 2,000-year periods of God’s plan. It was approximately 2,000 years from Adam to Abraham. It was another 2,000 years to Jesus. And it has been 2,000 years since Calvary. Hmmm. I don’t pretend to know God’s mind in this, but wouldn’t it be sweet if we really are that close to the end of the prophecy?

One thing believers of every stripe can agree on: there comes an end. No matter what you believe about how the world will end, all agree that every individual will reach a point when time runs out. At that point, a person’s relationship to Jesus is all that will matter. Those who have chosen to follow Him will step into a glorious eternity; those who have rejected Him will learn that their poor choice has dire consequences with no escape clause. That point in time may be 1,000 years in the future, or it may be one day. To borrow from Francis Schaeffer, how should we then live?