Time governs our daily lives and is a fundamental reality in the world. Our lives and the world itself would cease to exist, at least as we know it, without time. Cultures throughout history have viewed time with different perspectives. Some have viewed time as linear, straight from beginning to end. Others have viewed time as cyclical, repeating patterns. I suspect that in many of us today, both views are present. We are often fond of saying things like “history repeats itself” (cyclical perspective) and at the same time, we look ahead to “where history is headed” (linear perspective).
God’s word gives us a firmly linear perspective (though not without cyclical patterns). There is a great “end” to time. There is a grand finale that everything is building up to. The Christian study of these “last things” is called eschatology. There are a number of Christian perspectives on eschatology. (See a brief summary of the four major views here.) All of the orthodox views hold in common the visible return of Jesus Christ, the resurrection of the dead, and the final judgment. But even with these points of agreement, there is great disagreement about the other details of the “last days” and the end of history.
In this article, I’d like to approach this question of the “last days“, what Scripture has to say about them, and a biblical view of time, history, and the end of the world.
The Four Main Views on Eschatology
Like I mentioned above, there are four primary views that Christians have held on the topic of eschatology. They are as follows:
- Dispensational Premillennialism – This view sees a sharp distinction between Israel and the Church. The Church age (from Christ’s resurrection to the present) is the “dispensation of grace” which will conclude when Christ comes to rapture His church (i.e. Christians will rise to meet the Lord in the air). Then a seven-year tribulation will commence in which God will bring to completion His plan of redemption and restoration for His chosen people Israel. This will culminate in the second coming of Christ with His saints and the establishment of a literal, thousand-year reign of Christ in Jerusalem during a period called “the Millennium”.
- Historic Premillennialism – Like the view above, historic premillennialism believes in a literal reign of Christ on the earth after His second coming. (Christ’s return is before (pre-) the Millennium, thus the name: premillennialism.) However, it does not affirm the Dispensational distinction between national Israel and the Church. Some who hold to historic premil positions believe that the church will suffer through the final tribulation (post-trib rapture position) and some believe that Christ will rapture His church half-way through the tribulation (mid-trib rapture position).
- Postmillennialism – While the above two views affirm Christ’s second coming to be premillennial (i.e. before the Millennium), postmillennialism asserts that Christ will return after (post-) the Millennium which will be a golden age of peace when the whole world (or a vast majority of it) will be converted to Christianity and Christ will reign through His church over the nations of the world. (This view is held by folks such as Douglas Wilson and serves as a foundational idea driving much of the contemporary debate over “Christian Nationalism”.)
- Amillennialism – While the prefix “a-” means “no”, Amillennialists do not flat-out deny the reality of a Millennium, instead they believe that the “Millennium” in Revelation 20 is symbolic for the entire age between Christ’s first and second coming (i.e. the church age) and refers to Christ’s heavenly reign as the exalted King of kings. This view has also been referred to as “inaugurated eschatology” and we’ll see why in a moment.
Where Is History Going?
While I don’t have space in this article to examine all these views in depth, I would like to contrast the first and last one listed. Dispensational Premillennialism is by far the most common view held in evangelical America today. It has been popularized by the Left Behind series and is often the “air we breathe” when it comes to our cultural understanding of eschatology. Amillennialism (or Inaugurated Eschatology) is the view that I currently hold (although we all ought to hold our theology of the future humbly since only God knows the day or the the hour of Christ’s return.)
In this article, I’d like to contrast these two views in the context of an overall view of history. Where is history going? That is often the basic fundamental question we are asking when we talk about the last days. We want to know what we can expect in the coming days. Is the world getting worse? Is it getting better?
However, in one sense, we cannot understand where history is going if we don’t ask where it has been. Inaugurated eschatology encourages us to look back to understand God’s purposes for the future.
“The Ends of the Ages”
One of the reasons I do not hold to a dispensational premillennial understanding of the future is because of how the New Testament writers view their own place in history.
Too often, I believe, the doctrine of eschatology is wrongly addressed in isolation from the rest of the Christian faith. It is treated almost as an optional afterthought to the Gospel. “Sure, you have to believe the Gospel but you don’t have to be a prophecy nut!” This is, from my perspective, the pervasive attitude towards eschatology in our Christian culture today.
But the Bible does not approach the topic of the last days with this kind of isolated perspective. The biblical writers (especially of the New Testament) write about eschatological topics in very close connection with the person and work of Christ in the atonement.
At the heart of the question is a matter of God’s purposes. Dispensationalism views God’s redemptive plan for Israel (including the promise of land) as being distinct from the “dispensation of grace” received by the church. The church, in this view, is a parentheses in God’s plan. After the rapture, God will return to His original plan, the salvation and restoration of national/ethnic Israel. This will climax in the Millennial kingdom, set up in Jerusalem by Jesus upon His second coming.
Inaugurated eschatology (amillennialism) disagrees. It proposes that God’s redemptive plan and purpose in history has already climaxed in the incarnation, perfect life of obedience, death, burial, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ at His first coming. This is why this view is called by some, “inaugurated eschatology”. The future glory which we hope for has already been inaugurated by Christ’s finished work at the cross and by His victory at the empty tomb.
G.K. Beale writes, “Christians live between ‘D-Day’ and ‘V-Day.’ D-day was the first coming of Christ, when the opponent was defeated decisively; V-day is the final coming of Christ at which time the adversary will finally and completely surrender.”¹ This has often been called the “already-not yet” tension of the current age. We are already saved, Christ has already conquered, but we have “not yet” reached the consummation of these glorious realities.
The eschatological hope of the Scripture includes many themes: God’s presence with His people, the kingdom of God under the reign of God’s anointed king, etc. These promises have been secured, fulfilled, and inaugurated in our experience through Christ. The Holy Spirit’s indwelling presence in believers, for example, is the inauguration of the eschatological presence of God with His people. This will be consummated in the New Heavens and Earth when we see God face-to-face (see Rev. 21:1-5).
In this way, eschatology is intimately tied up with the Gospel itself. It is not an afterthought or an optional course of study for prophecy nuts. It is the very outworking of the Gospel.
As quoted above, G.K. Beale is a scholar who’s work has been very foundational to my understanding of this inaugurated eschatology perspective. He argues for an inauguration of many Old Testament eschatological prophecies in the last days (a period of time defined by the New Testament as the church age between Christ’s first and second coming, see Acts 2). End-time tribulation has been inaugurated, argues Beale². So have a variety of other Old Testament promises and expectations.
Perhaps one of the most striking places in the New Testament that this idea is found is in 1 Corinthians 10:11:
Now these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come.
1 Corinthians 10:11, ESV
Here Paul is drawing a parallel (with a warning) between the Israelites who tested God in the wilderness and the Corinthian church. He then declares that the things described in the Old Testament were meant to serve as an example to the Corinthians (and Paul), on whom the ends of the ages had come.
This phrase “ends of the ages” is important. In Greek it is telē tōn aiōnōn. The word telē is a form of the word telos. Telos is often used to refer to the literal end of something but it is also used to refer to the “goal” of something. For example, Paul uses this word in 1 Timothy 1:5 when he writes about the “aim of our charge” (ESV). He is writing to Timothy about what their ministry is meant to ultimately accomplish. We use “end” in the same way in the English language. We say that the “ends” don’t justify the means. By that we mean that our purpose or goal doesn’t always give us a free pass on what means we use to pursue said purposes and goals.
In the context of 1 Corinthians 10:11, Paul is using telos in this manner. He is not saying that the literal end of the world or the end of history has come upon the 1st century church. He is saying that the purpose to which history is marching has already been established and inaugurated in the 1st century by Christ’s atonement and victory. That’s why the Corinthians can look back at the Old Testament and understand that it points ahead to their time in history when Christ brings the promises of the Old Testament to (at least inaugurated) fulfillment.
Dispensational v.s. Inaugurated Eschatology Views of History
Dispensationalism presents the purposes of God for the restoration and redemption of His chosen people (i.e. Israel) as having been put on hold during the dispensation of grace. They will be resumed after the rapture of the church and brought to fulfillment in the Millennial kingdom.
In contrast to this, inaugurated eschatology (amillennialism) presents the purposes of God for the restoration and redemption of His chosen people (i.e. regenerate remnant of Israel [OT] and the church [NT]) as having found fulfillment and climax in the finished work of Christ in His life, death, burial, resurrection, and ascension. In the words of Douglas Wilson, a postmillennialist, “Now the resurrection of the dead in Jesus started in the middle of history.”³ (emphasis original)
Christ’s life and work is the fulcrum upon which all of history pivots. His second coming will be glorious and it will bring all our hopes to full consummation in a beautiful and glorious way. But it will only be finally applying fully what was already established at Calvary and in the garden tomb. To use Beale’s World War II metaphor, it will be the last mopping up of the resistance after a decisive D-Day victory.
This serves to promote the preeminence of Christ Jesus. He is the center of history. He is the beginning and the end, the alpha and the omega (Rev. 1:17, 22:13). All time looks to Him. All hopes look to Him. He is the preeminent one in all of Creation and in all of history. As Paul writes to the Colossians:
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent.
Colossians 1:15-18, ESV
And from all ages and all corners of the earth, throughout all time, the chorus echoes, “Amen!”
Footnotes
¹ G.K. Beale, A New Testament Biblical Theology, (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic), 2011, p. 162.
²See ibid, chapter 7.
³Douglas Wilson, Heaven Misplaced: Christ’s Kingdom on Earth, (Moscow, ID: Canon Press), 2008, p. 41.