It seems that every world crisis brings with it discussion of the end times. People are prone to ask, “are we living in the last days?”
Perhaps the natural instinct is to attempt an answer to this question by first reviewing current events. But we should answer this question by turning first to Scripture.
Our Cultural Moment
Our culture is saturated with what is called dispensational/pretribulational premillennialism (or pretrib premil for short). This is a theological system of thought about the doctrine of eschatology and the second coming of Christ. It’s the classic “Left Behind” theology: the church is raptured which sets off sevens years of tribulation by the Anti-Christ who attacks Israel. Meanwhile, many Jewish people are saved during the Great Tribulation. Then Christ returns seven years after the Rapture to set up His millennial kingdom and reign in Jerusalem for one thousand years.
This theology has become very prominent in the United States within the last century. It has led to prophecy books about the politics of the Middle East, rapture movies like the Left Behind series, and a focus on the “signs” of the end times. I believe this is one of the reasons we misunderstand what is meant by the “last days”. When someone asks if we are living in the “last days” or the “end times” they mean to ask if Jesus is coming back within the next generation. Are the eschatological prophecies of the Bible being fulfilled in front of our eyes? This question supposes that the “last days” refer to the very last few years of world history, somewhere in the ballpark of no more than ten years or so.
But is this the way the Bible actually defines the “last days”?
The Days of the Last Things
If someone were to ask me if I believe we are living in the last days, I would answer “yes” and take them to one Scripture passage in particular as my reason for that answer. That passage is Acts 2:14-21.
But Peter, standing with the eleven, lifted up his voice and addressed them: “Men of Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and give ear to my words. For these people are not drunk, as you suppose, since it is only the third hour of the day. But this is what was uttered through the prophet Joel:
“‘And in the last days it shall be, God declares,
Acts 2:14-21
that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh,
and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
and your young men shall see visions,
and your old men shall dream dreams;
even on my male servants and female servants
in those days I will pour out my Spirit, and they shall prophesy.
And I will show wonders in the heavens above
and signs on the earth below,
blood, and fire, and vapor of smoke;
the sun shall be turned to darkness
and the moon to blood,
before the day of the Lord comes, the great and magnificent day.
And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.’
This is the beginning of Peter’s sermon at Pentecost. The Spirit has been poured out on the believers and they have spoken in tongues which men from around the world have recognized as their own. Some however have mocked and disregarded this magnificent event as nothing more than drunken tomfoolery.
Peter responds to them by quoting the prophet Joel (Joel 2:28-32) and declaring that this prophecy of Joel’s has been fulfilled that very morning. However, where Joel writes, “And it shall come to pass afterward…” Peter says “And in the last days it shall be…” So I believe we are living in the last days because Peter said they were inaugurated at Pentecost.
Is Peter mis-quoting Joel? No, I believe he is doing something that practically all the New Testament writers and apostles do: he is interpreting the Old Testament prophecy of Joel with Holy Spirit-inspired interpretation. He is aware of what Joel is prophesying and is also aware of what has just transpired at Pentecost.
But how can we say that the last days began at Pentecost? Almost two thousand years have passed since then and Jesus has still not returned. How can the “last” days carry on for dozens of centuries?
Once again, I believe that our cultural osmosis of pretrib premillennialism has conditioned us to think “seven years” (or something similar) when we think of “last days”. But the last days have clearly been “lasting” for almost two thousand years. The last days, in the biblical usage of the term, are not the immediate years of lead-up before the second coming of Jesus. The last days are the days of the last things. They are the days of the fulfillment of the eschatological promises of God and the eschatological hope of the Old Testament. More can be said about this idea than what this article can contain but I would like to examine a few basic elements of this idea.
The Kingdom Promise-Hope
When I speak of “eschatological promise” or “eschatological hope” I am not necessarily referring to the second coming. Although the second coming of Jesus is our hope as Christians, the doctrine of eschatology covers much more and something can be “eschatological” without any reference to the second coming. For example, the renewal of Edenic paradise promised in Revelation 21 is “eschatological” even though it isn’t the second coming. Paul writes about the eschatological hope of the church in Romans 8:18-25. What Paul refers to will be consummated at the coming of Christ but Paul doesn’t explicitly mention the second coming of Christ itself.
So when we speak of the eschatological hope of the Old Testament, we are not referring explicitly to the second coming of Jesus. After all, the first advent of Christ had not yet happened! But the Old Testament saints were looking forward to something. They had a hope of something. And just like we don’t know all the details about our future hope (1 Cor. 2:9), they also didn’t understand all the outworkings of their hope. But they did have hope.
One of the things that the Old Testament saints hoped for was the establishment of God’s eternal kingdom. This was promised to David (2 Sam. 7:12-13, 16) and was further promised by Daniel (Dan. 2:34-35, 44). That a messianic King would reign on David’s throne was one of the great hopes of the Old Testament (Ps. 2:6-8; Ps. 110:1-2). This Messiah would come, deliver His people from oppression, and reign in an eternal kingdom.
If we read on in Peter’s sermon in Acts 2 we find that Peter, inspired by the Holy Spirit, sees the fulfillment of this hope in the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Being therefore a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that he would set one of his descendants on his throne, he foresaw and spoke about the resurrection of the Christ, that he was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption. This Jesus God raised up, and of that we all are witnesses. Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing. For David did not ascend into the heavens, but he himself says,
“‘The Lord said to my Lord,
“Sit at my right hand,
until I make your enemies your footstool.”’Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.
Acts 2:30-36
The Old Testament eschatological hope of the eternal kingdom of God is fulfilled in Christ’s resurrection!
Further evidence of this is found later in Acts in at least two places:
In Acts 13:32-34, Paul speaks of the resurrection of Jesus as a fulfillment of Psalm 2 and the covenant promise He made to David in 2 Samuel 7.
In Acts 15:13-18, James speaks of the Gospel going forth to the Gentiles as a fulfillment of the promise of the restoration of the Davidic kingdom found in Amos 9:11-12.
The “Blessing to the Nations” Promise-Hope
In addition (or perhaps as part of) to the kingdom promise-hope, the Old Testament saints also looked forward to the day when the nations would stream into Jerusalem to be blessed and to subsequently enrich Jerusalem with their wealth. Just a few references will suffice to show the saturation of this promise-hope in the OT: Jer. 3:17, Micah 4:1-2, Isa. 27:6, 13. Of course, this promise-hope goes all the way back to Abraham (Gen. 12:3).
So not only would the Messiah King reign but He would bless the nations. And just as Christ’s resurrection fulfilled the inauguration of the eternal kingdom of God, the day of Pentecost inaugurated the fulfillment of this blessing of the nations.
The Gospel would be/will be preached to every tribe, language, and tongue. Jesus commanded as such in the Great Commission.
Of course, some of the OT eschatological prophecies won’t be fulfilled until the New Heavens and New Earth. But many others find their fulfillment in Pentecost where the church was established and the subsequent spread of the Gospel around the known world within a few decades of that day.
Unlike the pretrib premillennialists we mentioned at the beginning of this article, Christians who hold to “amillennialism” (as I do) maintain that the church age is the “last days” and that the Old Testament’s eschatological hope of the eternal kingdom of David’s Son and the glory of the nations flowing to Jerusalem has begun to be fulfilled. Of course, full consummation of this hope still rests on the second coming of Christ and the establishment of the New Heavens and the New Earth. So rather than defining the “last days” as the last few years of world history, amillennialists understand the last days to be the period of time when the “last things” (i.e. the eschatological hopes and promises) take the scene.