Where Does it All End?

My sister made an observation the other day when we were visiting. She said it seemed to her that when we were younger, there were more good people than bad people. It’s just the opposite now, she thought. I admit that I was largely clueless as a child (some insist I still am), but reading the history of the Greatest Generation, and realizing what they had to go through just to stay alive and free, I can’t help but be impressed. I have written many times that where once you could expect a passing knowledge of the Bible in the general population, today the opposite is true: few people know what the Good Book says.

Sadly, even among those who claim to believe the Bible, their reading habits and their behavior suggest they don’t know it at all. I think my sister may be right: we have become a pagan society for the most part. The question we were discussing when she made her comment was whether current conditions herald the end of the age. The Bible had something to say about the end of the age when it was written. The big question is what the inspired writers considered an age. I believe that all the books of the Bible were written before the fall of Jerusalem – even Revelation. Not everyone agrees with me.

Since most of the Bible was written during the ages before the cross, it seems abundantly clear to me that the paradigm shift at Calvary signaled a new age. The age of God’s dealing with the nation of Israel began to close with the rending of the temple veil and was completed with the destruction of Jerusalem and its temple. It is quite natural to read Jesus’ words about the coming end as a forecast of what the Romans were going to do in 70 AD. The horrors Jesus described in Matthew 24 were accurately played out during Rome’s seven-year siege of the Holy City. He could say that the tribulation would be like nothing ever seen, because it would end with God’s abandonment of the nation of Israel as His chosen people.

Throughout the trials and tribulations Israel experienced, God always promised a remnant would return to the Holy Land. There is no similar promise after Calvary if you believe God shifted His attention from Israel, the nation, to His people, the church. The mystery Paul makes reference to more than once is that Gentiles would be adopted into God’s family. His family encompassed anyone who would place their faith in Christ’s sacrificial death on their behalf – Jew and Gentile alike. To Paul and me, that looks like the end of one age and the beginning of another.

Something else Jesus said adds weight to the idea that the end of the age was coming soon. It’s what He said in Matthew 24:34: “This generation will never pass away until all these things take place!” That sounds like He meant that the people who were listening to Him would be alive when it happened. The risen Christ told John the same thing when He commissioned the book that was to be Revelation. Jesus said that when He came on the clouds (a symbol of judgment), “Behold, he [Jesus] is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even every one who pierced him, and all the tribes of the [land] will mourn over him.” A few verses later, Jesus said, “Therefore, write the things which you saw, and the things which are, and the things which are about to take place after these things.  Jesus said the events John would be shown were “about to take place.” We might say soon. At the end of Revelation Jesus says again, “Yes, I am coming quickly!” I have trouble believing that the 2,000 years we have been waiting fulfill Jesus’ word “quickly.”

Although subtle, there is another thing that leads me to believe the end Jesus spoke of foretold the destruction of Jerusalem. If we follow the thinking of some that Jesus referred to an end that was at least 2,000 years away (as of now), we are left to imagine that all of church history is ignored until a supposed rapture of the church brings it back into the picture. Similarly, we must believe that John’s revelation to the seven churches of the first century was so far in their future as to be irrelevant. I don’t see why Jesus would give dire warnings to seven literal churches in Asia if they would never experience the events He foretold.

I will admit that the apocalyptic prophets in the Old Testament often spoke far in their future as well. However, if one assumes that those prophecies foretold the end of the age that would begin with the coming of their Messiah, Jesus’ words that the events were coming soon or quickly make perfect sense. He did say that the kingdom had already come in the context of His second coming aka the end of the age. Seeing things this way makes it unnecessary to twist Jesus’ words to fit much longer timeline than His literal statements imply. If a literal understanding of Scripture fits with the rest of the message, don’t look for another.

This leaves the question of when the end of this age comes. Some people are waiting for a symbolic red heifer and a rebuilt temple with reinstituted Old Testament sacrifices that would be profaned by the dreaded antichrist during a seven-year tribulation period. None of that is necessary if you take the view that it has already taken place with the crucifixion of Christ and the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD. All that needs to happen is for the trumpet to sound, and for Jesus to come back for His church – once again. Not three times: pre-tribulation, post- tribulation, and at the end of a millennial kingdom on earth.

I could be wrong about all this, but I don’t think so. Seeing the end this way does away with the need to mangle the clear meaning of Scriptural timing, and it fits the total flow of God’s redemption plan perfectly. I don’t have to force literal meanings on apocalyptic passages that were never meant to be literal. I can see how John’s revelation fits seamlessly with Daniel, Ezekiel, and Isaiah. It explains how the New Testament writers could say the new Jerusalem is already here spiritually and not something 2,000 years plus in their future.

This is all believable to me because the kingdom Jesus initiated is a spiritual kingdom and not a physical one ruled by Jesus from Jerusalem. Jesus said the kingdom was already here in His day; all we are waiting for is the final surrender of the enemy and the complete realization of the kingdom of Heaven on Earth. The most important thing about that is that we, the church, are tasked with spreading the kingdom as best we can until Christ returns to retake the throne on the New Earth. I believe that will be the end of the church age and the beginning of an eternal age of living in God’s presence daily. Then, my sister, the earth will be populated by ALL good people and no bad people. I can’t wait.

Related Posts: Heaven Can Wait; Why Heaven Matters; Binding Satan