End Times

At this the dispensationalists call a halt. 'Where,' they demand, 'is this SINGULAR Day of Judgment to be found in the Bible? We count no fewer than seven future judgments (see for example Chapter XXIV, I. Seven Future Judgments, p. 276, The Millenial Kingdom, John E. Walvoord), nor will any of them be this awful scene of eternal separation the artists depict, but rather the processing of homogeneous groups of people.'

Where in the Bible is there a reference to a singular eschatalogical judgment, versus multiple judgments? Everywhere there is a reference to an end-times judgment. The reference is always singular, there is no passage which enumerates multiple judgments:

"Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent, because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead. (Acts 17:30-31).

"I charge you therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who will judge the living and the dead at His appearing and His kingdom..." (2 Timothy 4:1).

"Do not marvel at this; for the hour is coming in which all who are in the graves will hear His voice and come forth—those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of condemnation." (John 5:28).

"Assuredly, I say to you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment than for that city!" (Matthew 10:15)

"But I say to you, it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon in the day of judgment than for you...But I say to you that it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment than for you." (Matthew 11:22-24).

"Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness in the day of judgment; because as He is, so are we in this world." (1 John 4:17),

"But the heavens and the earth which are now preserved by the same word, are reserved for fire until the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men." (2 Peter 3:7).

"And this is the will of Him who sent Me, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him may have everlasting life; and I will raise him up at the last day." (John 6:40).

"...in the day when God will judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ, according to my gospel." (Romans 2:16).

It is an oddity of the dispensational system that, every time the Bible refers to this singular event, it is deemed to be referring to a different event, and thus judgments multiply.

The Old Testament describes the same event:

“I will utterly sweep away everything from the face of the earth, says the LORD. I will sweep away humans and animals; I will sweep away the birds of the air and the fish of the sea. I will make the wicked stumble. I will cut off humanity from the face of the earth, says the LORD. I will stretch out my hand against Judah, and against all the inhabitants of Jerusalem...That day will be a day of wrath, a day of distress and anguish, a day of ruin and devastation, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness, a day of trumpet blast and battle cry against the fortified cities and against the lofty battlements.Neither their silver nor their gold will be able to save them on the day of the LORD’S wrath; in the fire of his passion the whole earth shall be consumed; for a full, a terrible end he will make of all the inhabitants of the earth. (Zephaniah 1:2-18 NRSV).

"Let the nations rouse themselves, and come up to the valley of Jehoshaphat; for there I will sit to judge all the neighboring nations. Put in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe. Go in, tread, for the wine press is full. The vats overflow, for their wickedness is great. Multitudes, multitudes, in the valley of decision! For the day of the LORD is near in the valley of decision. The sun and the moon are darkened, and the stars withdraw their shining. (Joel 3:12-15 NRSV).

"Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty,
God will shine forth.
Our God shall come, and shall not keep silent;
A fire shall devour before Him,
And it shall be very tempestuous all around Him.
He shall call to the heavens from above,
And to the earth, that He may judge His people:
“Gather My saints together to Me,
Those who have made a covenant with Me by sacrifice.”
Let the heavens declare His righteousness,
For God Himself is Judge." (Psalm 50:2-6).

"Oh, worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness!
Tremble before Him, all the earth. . .
For He is coming, for He is coming to judge the earth.
He shall judge the world with righteousness,
And the peoples with His truth." (Psalm 96:9-13).

"Let the rivers clap their hands;
Let the hills be joyful together before the LORD,
For He is coming to judge the earth.
With righteousness He shall judge the world,
And the peoples with equity." (Psalm 98:8-9).

"But the LORD shall endure forever;
He has prepared His throne for judgment.
He shall judge the world in righteousness,
And He shall administer judgment for the peoples in uprightness." (Psalm 9:7-8).

"Come near, you nations, to hear;
And heed, you people!
Let the earth hear, and all that is in it,
The world and all things that come forth from it.
For the indignation of the LORD is against all nations,
And His fury against all their armies;
He has utterly destroyed them,
He has given them over to the slaughter.
Also their slain shall be thrown out;
Their stench shall rise from their corpses,
And the mountains shall be melted with their blood.
All the host of heaven shall be dissolved,
And the heavens shall be rolled up like a scroll;
All their host shall fall down
As the leaf falls from the vine,
And as fruit falling from a fig tree." (Isaiah 34:1-4).

God judges nations and individuals throughout history; what is remarkable about this event is its universal sweep and the devastation and cosmic reconstruction accompanying it:

"But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will melt with fervent heat; both the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up." (2 Peter 3:10 NKJV).

Any literal reading of the Bible must accommodate these facts.

Master Calendar

The Bible prophesies a great many end-times events. Bible-believers look forward to all these events. The order in which they will occur, however, is not stated explicitly by the Bible. The 'master calendar' is missing, presumably by design. But what God's hand has withheld, human ingenuity has rushed to supply.

In the master calendar's absence, every possibly permutation of end-times events has been advanced. The 'sore thumb' sticking out of Biblical prophecy is the millenium of Revelation, which has been inserted at three main divisions: premillenial (Christ returns prior to the millenium), postmillenial (Christ returns subsequent to the millenium), and the tendentiously named amillenial: Christ returns subsequent to the millenium, which is identified with the inter-advent period. It is not correct to suggest that any of these three viewpoints ignores the Bible or denies the Bible, though partisans for each viewpoint have so alleged.

Historically Catholics have accepted Augustine's system of Bible prophecy, as do also conservative Calvinists and Lutherans. This system identifies the present time as the thousand years of Revelation: "But while the devil is bound, the saints reign with Christ during the same thousand years, understood in the same way, that is, of the time of His first coming." (Augustine, City of God, Book XX, 9.). The great strength of this system is its simplicity. Unlike the proliferating judgments of dispensational premillenialism, this system respects the Bible's one Day of Judgment, of the quick and the dead, the wicked and the righteous. As seen, the Bible does refer to such a day in the singular: "Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent, because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained." (Acts 17:30-31).

The weakness of this system is its counter-intuitive treatment of the millenium. Jewish authors in addition to John describe a millenium, none of them hinting they mean by this. . .the Dark Ages. And John does not write in his letters as one who believes Satan is already bound:

"We know that we are of God, and the whole world lies under the sway of the wicked one." (1 John 5:19).

"...because He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world." (1 John 4:4).

To this, the 'amillenialists,' as they are tendentiously called, respond: Jesus Himself said that He had already bound the "strong man:"

"And if Satan has risen up against himself, and is divided, he cannot stand, but has an end. No one can enter a strong man’s house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man. And then he will plunder his house." (Mark 3:26-27).

Jesus has entered into the strong man's,-- i.e., the devil's,-- house, the world, and liberated his captives, humanity.

Parsimony

William of Ockham advanced the principle of parsimony as a general rule of investigation. The principle was stated most economically after his time as "entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem:"

This is the great Achilles' heel of modern premillenialism. Of everything of which the Bible counts one, they've got a bushel.

Law of Prophetic Perspective

"Law of prophetic perspective -- viewing events and speaking of them in the same passages without a definite explanation of a distinction between them as to time. It is like seeing the mountain peaks in one view, without seeing the valleys between them. For example, Isa. 61:1-2 pictures the 1st and 2nd advents of Christ in the same passage with only a comma dividing the statements of one from the other. From a casual reading it would seem that the recorded happenings would take place, one right after the other; but we know that such is not the case for there have been nearly 2,000 years already between the preaching of the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance. Turning to Lk. 4:18-19 we see that Christ read this passage from Isaiah up to a certain point -- including the statement about the acceptable year of the Lord. At that place He declared, 'This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears.' (Lk. 4:21). Had He read the next part of the statement -- 'and the day of vengeance of our God' -- He could not have said the passage was fulfilled that day." (Finis Dake, The Dake Annotated Study Bible, p. 84 Index.)

Though this author is quite unreliable in matters of theology, he has expressed this principle well. All schools of prophecy use this principle, consciously or unconsciously. Another way of putting it is that prophetic passages in the Bible are not presented in chronological order. Any reader of the Old Testament prophets can confirm this; discussions of current events are interspersed with passages singing the glories of the Messianic age, back and forth. Whatever the organizational principle of Bible prophecy, chronology is not it.

The different schools of prophecy diverge in which passages they subject to this principle, and which they sequester. If all prophetic events are allowed to splinter into two or more events widely separated in time, then no master calendar can be prepared, because any event might be both before, and also after another. The premillenialists exempt the Book of Revelation from this principle: the millenium succeeds the second coming because Chapter 20 succeeds Chapter 19. Amillenialists exempt the Day of Judgment from this rule. Because this event is always described in the singular, therefore Chapter 20 must be lined up with the rest of the Bible at this fixed point, about which all else revolves: the judgment, described in verse 11.

This is why these systems can be taught to willing students, but never demonstrated to a skeptic. The initial decision: which verses to subject to the Law of Prophetic Perspective, and which to exempt,-- determines the result. Though interpreters may feel they have reason to prefer one system to another, these systems cannot be proven in the way that significant Bible doctrines can be proven.

The Rapture

Jerome's Latin Vulgate renders 'caught up' with the future passive of the verb rapio; those thus caught up are said to be 'raptured.' That this event will occur is a certainty, it's in the Bible; when it will occur, in relation to other events, is subject to much speculation.

Traditionalists time this event at the second coming of Jesus Christ. The Bible prophesies a second coming:

"So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation." (Hebrews 9:28).

The Bible counts no third nor fourth coming; the comings and goings projected by the dispensationalists claim support in the above-mentioned Law of Prophetic Perspective. What is described in the Bible as one event is unfolded, like a fan, into a multitude of sequential events. This approach to reading the Bible, it will be noted, is far from literal. Reading 'one' and understanding 'seven' is not a literal way to read the Bible, because 'one' does not literally mean 'seven.' Neither is counting two 'second comings' literal; a literalist would count the second 'second coming' as the third. While multiplying events cannot be ruled altogether inadmissible, the parsimonious reader resorts to this liberty as infrequently as possible.

Why would surviving and resurrected believers rise to meet the Lord in the air if they are not then proceeding as a body to some third location?

The believers of Rome came out to meet Paul: "...and so we went toward Rome. And from thence, when the brethren heard of us, they came to meet us as far as Appii forum, and The three taverns: whom when Paul saw, he thanked God, and took courage." (Acts 28:14-15). The brethren did not then take ship for some foreign port of call; they came out to meet Paul, not to wave at him in passing. When a sports team wins a Super-bowl, fans go out to the airport,-- not to fly away elsewhere, but to welcome and accompany the returning team home. When Jesus entered Jerusalem, people went out to meet Him: "The next day a great multitude that had come to the feast, when they heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem, took branches of palm trees and went out to meet Him, and cried out: ‘Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the LORD! The King of Israel!’" (John 12:12-13). Then they followed Him back into the very city from which they had just come out: "And many spread their clothes on the road, and others cut down leafy branches from the trees and spread them on the road. Then those who went before and those who followed cried out, saying: ‘Hosanna!’" (Mark 11:8-9). The trajectory they described in so doing was that of a yo-yo, but there was a method to their madness.

The Lord returns, in triumph, with this same raptured mighty army in His train: "And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints..." (Jude 1:14). This is a triumphal entry, befitting a conquering hero's return.

Dispensationalists count this event, the Rapture, as a stand-alone event occurring a full seven years before the second coming.

If you watch low-budget movies or read potboilers, you have encountered an event wherein people vanish into thin air, disappearing as their vehicles crash into one another, each leaving behind a neat little pile of clothes. Where is the description of this event in the Bible? Nowhere; the Bible nowhere speaks of the day when believers will vanish. The Bible speaks rather of believers caught up into the sky as the Lord descends from heaven. This 'train wreck' is science fiction, a better fit with Scientology than with Christianity. A young lady seer of the nineteenth century named Margaret Macdonald first imagined this silent, or secret, rapture:

"I saw it was just the Lord himself descending from Heaven with a shout, just the glorified man, even Jesus; but that all must, as Stephen was, be filled with the Holy Ghost, that they might look up, and see the brightness of the Father's glory. I saw the error to be, that men think that it will be something seen by the natural eye; but 'tis spiritual discernment that is needed, the eye of God in his people." (Margaret Macdonald).

The event described in the Bible is anything but silent, because it is accompanied with the trumpet call of the second coming: "And He will send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they will gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other." (Matthew 24:31).

The dispensationalists themselves realize it is heresy to deny that Jesus rose again in the flesh:

"Others say they believe in the resurrection of Jesus, but they merely believe that the 'spirit of Jesus' rose again and is in the world today. That is no bodily resurrection! But naive Christians fall for that line." (Tim LaHaye, The Beginning of the End, p. 109).

Jesus Christ is the "firstfruits" of those who sleep (1 Corinthians 15:20). Just as He rose from the grave, deceased believers will rise from their graves to meet Him, and those who are alive will be transformed into the same form, not another. Jesus rose in the flesh; His resurrection body was visible and tangible; He did not rise in invisible, 'spirit' form:

"But they were terrified and frightened, and supposed they had seen a spirit. And He said to them, 'Why are you troubled? And why do doubts arise in your hearts? Behold My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself. Handle Me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see I have.' When He had said this, He showed them His hands and His feet." (Luke 24:37-40).

Resurrected believers are likewise, in the normal order of nature, visible, not invisible. Certainly it is an easy thing for God's miracle-working power to hide visible things from man's sight, but where there is no promise, there is no reason to expect He will make what is naturally visible to be invisible. The dispensationalists understand the believers' 'resurrection' as equivalent to 'becoming invisible' on the strength of their theosophistic reading 1 Corinthians 15:44:

"So also is the resurrection of the dead. The body is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption. . .It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body." (1 Corinthians 15:42-44).

What could a "spiritual body" be, ask the dispensationalists, but invisible? Thus they understand the resurrection of the saints as equivalent to becoming invisible; i.e., vanishing. That this is not what is meant by a "spiritual body" is seen in Jesus' resurrection; we follow in His footsteps, like the song says: "Soar we now where Christ has led, Alleluia! Following our exalted Head, Alleluia! Made like Him, like Him we rise, Alleluia! Ours the cross, the grave, the skies, Alleluia!" (Charles Wesley, Christ the Lord is Risen Today). As we are presently constituted, our feeble puff of breath inhabits a clay house under uncertain tenancy. The spirit can be evicted at any moment. Not so in the resurrection. Now our spirit sojourns ill at ease in weak clay tabernacles every day declining toward dissolution, but then will feel right at home in a resurrection body made to conform to the enduring governing spirit: a "spiritual body."

As to fuel trucks crashing into schoolbuses, the reader who has placed his finger at the spot where the Bible describes an 'invisible' or 'silent' rapture will find the description of this event at the same location. There is no such event! The living God is not the author of confusion (1 Corinthians 14:33).

The traditional view of the rapture is on display in the picture below. As the saints on the left come up out of their graves, they rise upward toward Christ, who is descending from heaven, clustering in a cloud around Him.

2,000 Year Gap

As noted, some readers find in some prophetic passages of the Bible unadvertised gaps. If there are any such, would not the very last place one would expect to find such a gap be in a chronology? An author who lists sequence and duration of events, but fails to warn the reader there are unadvertised 'gaps,' has not produced a usable chronology.

Jesus was born into a nation fervently expecting its Messiah: "And behold, there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon, and this man was just and devout, waiting for the Consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him. And it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Christ." (Luke 2:25-26). Why were people expecting the Messiah at just that time? Because Daniel had laid out the chronology:

"Seventy weeks are determined for your people and for your holy city, to finish the transgression, to make an end of sins, to make reconciliation for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy, and to anoint the Most Holy. Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the command to restore and build Jerusalem until Messiah the Prince, there shall be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks; the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublesome times." (Daniel 9:24-25).

Daniel's chronology of 69 weeks of years (69 x 7) runs, from the decree to rebuild Jerusalem, to A.D. 30, the triumphal entry of Jesus Christ into that city. If defenders of Sabbatai Sevi's messianic claim explained there is a 1,600 year 'gap' in Daniel's 69 week chronology, what Christian would not laugh them out of town?

Yet dispensationalism is founded upon the conviction there is a 2,000 year 'gap' between Daniel's 69th week and the 70th week. Because otherwise, this prophecy, which says nothing about 'antichrist' or the second coming, is not a prophecy about 'antichrist' or the second coming, but of the Lord's first coming and the destruction of Jerusalem. Since Christian commentators got along for nearly two millennia understanding that Daniel was writing about the first advent and the destruction of the temple, not about antichrist, they also got along without any 2,000 year 'gap.'

Again and against dispensationalism is marketed as a 'literal' interpretation of scripture. Yet inserting 2,000 year gaps into chronologies as needed is anything but literal.

The Nations

"When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of His glory. All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats. And He will set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on the left. Then the King will say to those on His right hand, ‘Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world...'" (Matthew 25:31-34).

The word 'nations' [ethnos] often means, by implication, 'nations other than the Jews,' i.e., Gentiles. Indeed in the New Testament it is commonly translated 'Gentiles.' Yet the word's literal meaning is simply 'nation,' and it is quite possible for Israel to be numbered amongst the 'nations:'

"And when they came to Jesus, they begged Him earnestly, saying that the one for whom He should do this was deserving, 'for he loves our nation [ethnos], and has built us a synagogue.'" (Luke 7:4-5).

"And they began to accuse Him, saying, 'We found this fellow perverting the nation [ethnos], and forbidding to pay taxes to Caesar, saying that He Himself is Christ, a King.'" (Luke 23:2).

". . .and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem." (Luke 24:47).

"If we let Him alone like this, everyone will believe in Him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and nation [ethnos]. . . nor do you consider that it is expedient for us that one man should die for the people, and not that the whole nation [ethnos] should perish. Now this he did not say on his own authority; but being high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus would die for the nation [ethnos], and not for that nation [ethnos] only, but also that He would gather together in one the children of God who were scattered abroad." (John 11:48-52).

"And they said, 'Cornelius the centurion, a just man, one who fears God and has a good reputation among all the nation [ethnos] of the Jews, was divinely instructed by a holy angel to summon you to his house, and to hear words from you.'" (Acts 10:22).

"Now after many years I came to bring alms and offerings to my nation [ethnos], in the midst of which some Jews from Asia found me purified in the temple, neither with a mob nor with tumult." (Acts 24:17).

"My manner of life from my youth, which was spent from the beginning among my own nation [ethnos] at Jerusalem, all the Jews know." (Acts 26:4).

In calling Abraham "father of many nations," the Old Testament does not disinherit his offspring the Hebrews:

"And thy name shall no more be called Abram, but thy name shall be Abraam, for I have made thee a father of many nations [ethnos LXX]." (Genesis 17:5, Septuagint)

So it is not safe to assume a judgment of "nations" excludes Jews or Christians. This judgment of sheep and goats leaves individual human beings spending an eternity in heaven or hell: "Then He will also say to those on the left hand, 'Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels:...'" (Matthew 25:41). One of the odder ideas of modern evangelical Christianity is that these people are spending eternity with God or apart from Him, based on their treatment of the modern-day state of Israel, many of whose inhabitants are atheists or agnostics:

"Because Jesus said, 'Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me (Matt. 25:40). Jesus' reference to 'My brethren' was a reference to the Jewish people, not some Christian denomination. In Scripture, Jesus referred to Gentiles as 'dogs' (Matt. 15:26-27), not as 'My brethren.'" (John Hagee, Final Dawn over Jerusalem, pp. 92-93).

There is, needless to say, no Bible teaching according to which human beings spend eternity in heaven or in hell on any such basis:

"After the Tribulation, the first thing God will do in the Millenial Kingdom is gather the nations of the earth and judge them for the manner in which they treated the nation of Israel. . .At that moment, the Lion of Judah will assemble the divine tribunal and begin calling the nations to the bar of justice to answer for their abuse or blessing of the Jewish people and the State of Israel." (John Hagee, 'Final Dawn over Jerusalem,' p. 197).

Who did Jesus Himself say were His brethren?: "For whoever does the will of My Father in heaven is My brother and sister and mother." (Matthew 12:50). These modern revisionists strangely insist that only those who do not do God's will are Jesus' "brothers."

Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God

Church-goers rarely hear today the old-fashioned sermons that made sinners tremble before an angry God. Many Christians do not expect ever to stand before their Judge. Not that they anticipate pleading the shed blood of Jesus Christ; rather, they do not expect to be there at all: "Remember, no believer in Christ will stand before God at the great white throne." (Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins, 'Are We Living in the End Times?,' pp. 252-253). What they expect instead is a casual 'performance review,' at issue the size of their 'bonus' or reward. "Every knee shall bow" promises universality:

"For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ. For it is written: 'As I live, says the LORD, every knee shall bow to Me, and every tongue shall confess to God.' So then each of us shall give account of himself to God." (Romans 14:10-12).

But the guiding idea of dispensationalism is 'different strokes for different folks.' People cannot be judged together because they are judged according to different programs. While the dispensationalists admit that "every knee shall bow," the 'every-ness' will be cumulative, as knees bow at different events addressing different issues spread out over more than a thousand years.

Prior to the nineteenth century the Last Judgment was believed and preached by all Christians:

The lack on interest in 'sin' as a preaching theme tracks with the disappearance of 'judgment.'

Back to the Drawing Board

The earliest church writers who address Bible prophecy are premillenialists; that is to say, they expect Christ's second coming to occur prior to the millenium of Revelation Chapter 20. They are most accurately categorized as 'post-trib,' knowing nothing of the stand-alone rapture John Darby would later discover. But then along came Augustine and started everyone down a different track.

Why did Augustine feel at liberty to overturn the prophecy consensus of his day? Quite simply, events had already invalidated the prophecy consensus of his day. Christians had thought that when Rome fell, Christ would return. Rome was sacked and burned by Alaric the Goth in 410 A.D. People went up to the roof-tops and scanned the skies. . .and nothing happened. It was like 1844, or 1988, or 1914; a plausible and widely-held interpretation had been put to the test, and found wanting. Human pride of authorship is so intense that people at this point start tweaking and tinkering, perfecting their system to yield 1845 or 1989.

But this is not the right path. The system failed, so it's back to the drawing board. God cannot be in error; it is the interpretation which is lacking.

As noted, the great strength of this system is its simplicity. Moreover, it preserves the Bible's solitary day of judgment. As noted, the Bible refers to this day in language which is singular, sometimes magisterially so: "He who rejects Me, and does not receive My words, has that which judges him—the word that I have spoken will judge him in the last day." (John 12:48). How many 'last day's' can there be?

Dispensationalists point to this weakness: the system 'spiritualizes' two essential points, the first resurrection, understood as the new birth, and the thousand years, understood symbolically as a complete or perfect span of time. While the second resurrection is understood to be the bodily resurrection at Christ's second coming, the first is that of which Paul says: "If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God." (Colossians 3:1). Moreover, under the dispensational system, this "first" resurrection is actually the 'second' by their count: this is the resurrection of the 'tribulation saints,' the dead in Christ having been raised seven years previously. Whatever the merits of counting the 'first' as 'second,' 'literalism' is not what you call it, because the literal meaning of 'first' is not 'second.'

In the fifth century, the time was ripe for a re-investigation of prophecy, because the prevailing view had failed when Rome burned without consequence. Many centuries later John Nelson Darby would revive the older framework by the helpful addition of a two thousand year gap, inserted as needed. Our own times present a similar failure, of Darby's now universally popular but far from literal system. Who has not been amazed and appalled at the bloodthirstiness of the dispensational prophecy teachers? These people love war, any war: a just war, an unjust war, even a war like the Iraq war, criminal aggression according to international law. Such war lust is not a Christian disposition: "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control." (Galatians 5:22). Since dispensationalism does not produce a Christian temper in its professors, it cannot be right. One admittedly flawed place to start this re-examination:

Enthronement

David, after being anointed as King by the prophet Samuel, wandered about for years before his enthronement. Is Jesus now in the same status, an anointed King waiting for His reign to begin? Not according to the New Testament:

"So then, after the Lord had spoken to them, He was received up into heaven, and sat down at the right hand of God." (Mark 16:19).

The promise here announced as fulfilled is this:

“The LORD said to my Lord,
'Sit at My right hand,
Till I make Your enemies Your footstool.'
The LORD shall send the rod of Your strength out of Zion.
Rule in the midst of Your enemies!” (Psalm 110:1-2).

The Kingdom is already underway, though not yet entered into its glorious final phase.

Date of the Book of Revelation

The date of this book is one of the few points upon which Bible-believers and secular historians agree: it was written late in the first century, they concur. Early church writers who show little interest in the dating of other books do very nearly unanimously date this one to Domitian's day. (An exception is Epiphanius, who thinks John was released from Patmos under Claudius: ". . .after his return from Patmos under Claudius Caesar. . ." (Epiphanius, Panarion, Section IV, Chapter 31 (51), 12.1); "He foretold it prophetically by the mouth of St. John, who prophesied before his falling asleep, during the time of Claudius Caesar and earlier, when he was on the isle of Patmos." (Epiphanius, Panarion, Section IV, Chapter 31 (51), 33.9). . .perhaps imprisoned under Gaius?) Evidently the date of this book is significant in a way that the dating of other New Testament documents is not. Do these early authors protest too much? Only for the weightiest reasons should one discount the testimony of those in a chronological position to find out the facts. But in this case, the book's internal testimony points in another direction:

"There are also seven kings. Five have fallen, one is, and the other has not yet come. And when he comes, he must continue a short time." (Revelation 17:10).

Some of the events described in Revelation, like the resurrection of the dead and the second coming, are events of distant futurity to the author. But it seems doubtful the author would isolate a slice of distant futurity wherein one king now "is" and five kings "have fallen." The five kings who had fallen by the author's day would have included Julius through Claudius:

Classical enumerations of the Caesars begin the sequence with Julius. Suetonius begins his history, 'Twelve Caesars,' with Julius. The Jewish Sibyls likewise start their count with Julius: "...there will be the first prince who will sum up twice ten with his initial letter [Caesar]. He will conquer long in wars. He will have his first letter of ten [Julius], so that after him will reign whoever obtained as initial the first of the alphabet. [Augustus]" (The Sibylline Oracles, Book 5, 12-15). The apocryphal book known as 2 Esdras counts twelve kings: "The days are coming when the earth will be under an empire more terrible than any before. It will be ruled by twelve kings, one after another. The second to come to the throne will have the longest reign of all the twelve." (2 Esdras 12:13-16). Augustus, the second emperor counting from Julius as first, died in 14 A.D. at the age of 76. Recalling the battle of Actium was in 31 B.C., this is the longest reign.

Early Christian authors respect the customary numbering: that Julius is the "first:"

"The annual magistrates ruled the Romans, as we say, for 453 years. Afterwards those who are called emperors began in this order: first, Caius Julius, who reigned 3 years 4 months 6 days; then Augustus, 56 years 4 months 1 day; Tiberius, 22 years; then another Caius, 3 years 8 months 7 days; Claudius, 23 years 8 months 24 days; Nero, 13 years 6 months 28 days;..." (Theophilus of Antioch, To Autolycus, Book 3, Chapter 27).

The later emperors styled themselves 'Caesars' after the first in the series. If his power grab was not legitimate, neither was theirs. That would make the one who "is" Nero Caesar, who ruled from 54 A.D. to 68 A.D.

Thus the internal testimony of the book. Additional circumstantial evidence turns up in the Great Fire of 64 A.D. and its aftermath. Tacitus describes this cataclysmic event:

No explanation is needed for a fire that began in shops stocked with flammable goods; ancient fire suppression technologies were inadequate. Most fires start accidentally; Mrs. O'Leary's cow was no terrorist. The wandering bands who interfered with efforts to fight the fire were likely opportunistic looters.

Nero punished the Christians corporately: why? To say that he is mad explains nothing, though it cannot be denied that Nero, a matricide, was a troubled soul. If the Book of Revelation were already in circulation prior to the fire, no further explanation is required. The police mind, whether in that day or in this, finds advance knowledge of an event tantamount to complicity. The whore seated upon seven hills (Revelation 17:9) would have been understood as Rome by John's contemporaries, because the seven hills of Rome were a commonplace of ancient 'travel brochures.'

Contrariwise, writing the book in the immediate aftermath of the fire would be like pinning a 'Prosecute Me' sign to one's backside. The traditional dating is psychologically impossible. John could not fail to remember the fire of 64; individuals personally known to him including Peter perished cruelly in the aftermath. To suppose that, thirty years later, he would willingly have chirped up with, 'Oh by the way, Rome's gonna burn,' grates like fingernails on a chalk-board. Rome had already burnt, and the falsely accused Christians had been punished for it. I suspect he'd have fled further than Jonah's Tarshish had the Lord required him to say so; why open that whole can of worms all over again?

A likely date of composition is 62 A.D. The 'elephant in the living room' of Revelation study, both secular and religious, is that 1.) Rome did burn, in 64 A.D., and 2.) the Christians were blamed for it. Some secularists would take the fact that Rome did burn as proof that the book of Revelation cannot have been written until after the fact. This is how they date Bible books: if a book prophesies an identifiable event, say the destruction of the temple, then it must have been written after the fact. Experience cannot justify this rule. It is as if, unearthing a Jeanne Dixon newspaper article of the 1950's, one were to lay down that none of the events described, if they actually happened, can have happened when they did, including John F. Kennedy's assassination. But even a false prophet like Ms. Dixon cannot possibly be wrong 100% of the time. If you predict that someone will die, Las Vegas can give you odds on that; the odds cannot be zero, and if that party already has one foot in the grave, the odds are higher. Secular Bible study defies statistics when it assumes that Christian prophecy must be wrong 100% of the time, and the only way it can be right is if it is postdated.

John writes as though the temple were still standing, confirming a date of writing prior to 70 A.D. Why, then, do early witnesses concur that this book was written in the 90's while Domitian was emperor? Perhaps this very unanimity should excite suspicion. No other New Testament book's dating receives this level of attention, or indeed any attention at all. Was it painful to the early church to recall a prosecution painting their movement as an ancient Aum Shinri Kyo. . .a prosecution not without evidence, though without truth? Peter writes at a time when the church is undergoing a "fiery trial" (1 Peter 4:12). This phrase can just as easily mean a 'trial for fire:' i.e., an arson trial. I do not think there is a chance in the world the church was guilty; unlike so many today who think God needs their help to work His wonders, the early Christians understood what the saying means, "Vengeance is Mine, I will repay" (Romans 12:19, Deuteronomy 32:35).

All or Nothing

A school of prophecy interpretation has arisen in recent years called Preterism. The Preterists do not expect, with the Nicene creed, that "he shall come again with glory to judge the quick and the dead," because they think that already happened. . . though it plainly has not. A student of prophecy who assumes that all prophesied events either have already happened in his day, or have not but are about to, assigns a privileged position to his own point on the time-line beyond all likelihood. Equally unwilling to look in front of their faces are the futurists, who insist that, because some of the events of the book of Revelation have not yet occurred, including the resurrection and the final judgment, therefore none of the events described in this book can yet have occurred. There is no book of prophecy in the Bible which passes this 'all or nothing' test; Isaiah prophesied, not only the Messiah, but also current events. Readers attuned to the 'Law of Prophetic Perspective' will disentangle fulfilled prophecies from unfulfilled.

Lost

"Then I saw a great white throne and Him who sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away. And there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, standing before God, and books were opened. And another book was opened, which is the Book of Life. And the dead were judged according to their works, by the things which were written in the books." (Revelation 20:11-12).

The reader of Revelation chapter 20 finds himself in unfamiliar territory. What is the "thousand years,"-- to Latinize, the millenium? This period is mentioned nowhere else in scripture. Does it follow in sequence after the battle just completed in the prior chapter? It is normal for historical narratives to be written in chronological order. But if this book unfolds in chronological order, it is the only Bible prophecy book so written. Most of them bounce between contemporary events, to end-time events, and back again. And a close study of the book of Revelation shows it cannot have been written in chronological order. See the Lamb on Mount Zion: "Then I looked, and behold, a Lamb standing on Mount Zion, and with Him one hundred and forty-four thousand, having His Father’s name written on their foreheads." (Revelation 14:1). But this is in chapter 14, not chapter 19! Rather the narrative circles around the same events, until it breaks out of the circle with the resurrection, judgment, and new heavens and new earth.

So does chapter 20 continue the narrative, or start over, or stand back and take a wider view? In an unfamiliar landscape, it is helpful to locate a landmark. The striking landmark here is our old friend, the Last Judgment, at 20:12. We should orient ourselves by this landmark.

Every Eye

"Behold, He is coming with clouds, and every eye will see Him, even they who pierced Him. And all the tribes of the earth will mourn because of Him. Even so, Amen." (Revelation 1:7).

The Bible promises a second coming of our Lord to the earth. Just as He ascended into heaven following His first advent, so shall He descend:

"Now when He had spoken these things, while they watched, He was taken up, and a cloud received Him out of their sight. And while they looked steadfastly toward heaven as He went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel, who also said, 'Men of Galilee, why do you stand gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will so come in like manner as you saw Him go into heaven.'" (Acts 1:9-11).

There is no half-way descent known to scripture, nor is this event repeated so that the Bible reader can count a third coming and a fourth coming, though some people do. If, as John says in the Revelation, "every eye" shall see Him, including "who pierced Him," what does this imply about who will be standing on the earth on the day of the second coming? Those who watch Him descend include "they who pierced Him." Now some of those who pierced Him, like the centurion of Mark 15:39, may have become believers, but most must be numbered with the ungodly. And they are all dead. So they must have been raised from the dead to see Him descend with their own eyes.

According to the dispensationalists, the unrighteous dead will not be raised until one thousand years after Christ's second coming. This cannot be right, according to Revelation 1:7. So the second coming must occur at the same time as the resurrection and judgment.