Time To Unlearn A Few Things

I suggest that if we put the question of Calvinism and Arminianism aside for a time and study God as he has revealed himself in the scriptures we will not discover Aristotle’s Unmoved Mover as Calvinism has always espoused; in fact we may not even discover God as the Arminian understands him. It may be, after seeking to discover the God of the scriptures on their own terms, that we may discover the God of Open Theism quite by accident! Not of Calvin’s Unmoved Mover, but of Pinnock’s Most Moved Mover. We will, in all probability, discover as John Sanders said, a God Who Risks. This – I believe – is the truth we all must wrestle with whether or not we embrace Open Theism.

Walter Brueggemann, one of the foremost Old Testament scholars, seems quite disinterested in questions of determinism and foreknowledge – except when specific texts’ call attention to such speculation – and in the debates between Calvinism and Arminianism (and Open Theism). But in his studies of the God of the Old Testament, the “Hebrew testimony” and portrayal of YWHW, he writes: “the defining category for faith in the Old Testament is dialogue, whereby all parties – including God – are changed in a dialogic exchange that is potentially transformative for all parties… including God.” And again, “The Old Testament is an invitation to reimagine our life and our faith as an on-going dialogic transaction in which all parties are variously summoned to risk and change.” He goes on:

“When we are freed of static categories of interpretation that are widely utilized among us, we are able to see that the articulation of God in the Old Testament partakes exactly of the quality of complexity, dynamism, and fluidity that belong to the post-modern world… such an open and thick articulation of faith may be threatening to some and may require unlearning by us all”. An Unsettling God; 2009, p.xii; italics added.

What a powerful statement from a man who is not interested in sustaining “static categories of interpretation” such as Calvinism or Arminianism; neither, it is prudent to add, is he interested in Open Theism. When Brueggemann approaches the scriptures he does not ask, is the God of Calvin here or the God of Arminius or the God of Pinnock? When Brueggemann approaches the Old Testament he asks the question to the ancient Hebrews, “Who do you say that He is?” Sometimes we see the categories of Calvin and sometimes we see the categories of Arminius, this is partly what makes God “unsettling”, because YWHW cannot be made to easily fit into our “static categories of interpretation” – He is too big, and we are too fallible. Yet it is a fearful road Brueggemann offers, it is a road of discomfort; because in asking the Hebrews and not the Greeks “Who is YWHW?” he finds himself immediately at odds with classical Christian theology. “In… much classical Christian theology, ‘God’ can be understood in terms of quite settled categories that are, for the most part, inimical to the biblical tradition. The casting of the classical tradition… is primarily informed by the Unmoved Mover of Hellenistic thought… a Being completely apart from and unaffected by the reality of the world” [p.1]

We have come to a point – or perhaps we have always been there – where the God revealed by the Hebrew testimony is rather embarrassing to our sensibilities. The Hebrews speak of a God affected by the passing of time; a God emotionally invested in his creation and sometimes those emotions are even mixed. They speak of a God whose mind is not settled and what’s worse, they don’t seem to mind this God at all! This God repents, He laughs, He tests, He changes His mind and what’s more, He allows his creation to move Him to action and at other times, they have the power to stay His wrathful hand. “It is common to be embarrassed about the anthropomorphic aspects of this God, so embarrassed as to want to explain away such a characterization or at least to transpose it into a form that better serves a generic notion of God…. All such embarrassments, however, fail to do justice to the scriptural tradition.” [p.2]

Again, Walter Brueggemann has called us out on the carpet; all of us! Classical Christianity cannot escape the ugly reality that we have since near the beginning been embarrassed of the Hebrew testimony of God and so silenced it. It does not jive well with our sensibilities, our Hellenistic sensibilities. But who is the guilty one; are they or are we? It is not they who are being unfaithful to the scriptures; indeed they wrote them! And instead of being embarrassed of the Hebrew testimony of YWHW we ought to be embarrassed of our selves. It will no longer do, in my mind, to dismiss the challenge of the Old Testament as embarrassing “anthropomorphic” ramblings of ancient people. Christianity needs – to some extent – to put Classical Christian Theology on trial and the judge ought not to be Aristotle, but Abraham. Classical Christian Theology is in need of purification, and its filter ought to be the scriptures.

In Christ,
Derek

Unsettling Theology

The idea first came in to my mind to write a blog series called, "Why I Am.." when I saw a similar list of "Why I Am's..." on the cover of a popular author's book. This approach to blogging has proved to be unfruitful and unproductive. While labels are unavoidable and not always a bad thing, to write a series like this suggests that a) I am settled in my theology, b) that I am dogmatic in my positions, and it immediately sets up barriers between myself and others who - quite naturally - have differing views. None of this was my intention and in hindsight I would have never begun this series. I am not dogmatic toward "labels" or "traditions" as some, and so I abandon this series on "Why I Am..." with a few prepositions of "I believe" with the hopes of undoing some of what has resulted from that series.

I believe in the Gospel of Jesus Christ and have allowed that fact to change me; if that makes me a "Christian" then so be it. I shy not away from that label.

I believe that our ultimate authority on all matters pertaining to the faith is God and that he has revealed Himself and his will in and through Jesus Christ and through the writings of his Apostles and Prophets by the Holy Spirit; if that makes me "Protestant Reformed Evangelical" then so be it.

I believe that my commitment to God's authority exercised through the scriptures to be over and above all traditions necessitates - in my opinion - remaining in an attitude of "Reformed and Always Reforming"; if this places me under the label of "Post-Conservative", then so be it.

I believe in the biblical doctrines of Election, Predestination and Foreordination to be understood in the Hebrew context of Covenant and Incorporation and - as it is revealed in the New Testament - to be Christocentric; I believe Romans 9-11 is to be understood properly only with the context of Romans 1-8 in which the Righteousness of God - his faithfulness to his covenant with Israel - is on trial, and that predestination in that context is in keeping with the Hebrew idea of Covenantal Election; if that makes me "Arminian", then so be it.

I believe that the Hebrew idea of "Time" is linear and unending, that the idea of "timelessness" is a neo-Platonic pollution into historic Christianity and that "eternity" should be understood and defined as, "time-unending" not "timelessness"; furthermore I believe that God is passionate, near, able to be influenced by his children to either be moved to action or else to stay his wrathful hand as the scriptures attest; that the ideas of God being an "Unmoved Mover", Impassionate, Distant and Immutable are all neo-Platonic ideas that have polluted classical Christian theology and are inimical to the testimony of scripture; if all of this presents me with "Open Theistic" tendencies, then so be it.

I believe that Christ will return to judge the living and the dead, that in this return both righeous and wicked will experience a resurrection and that afterwards God will destroy (but not destroy) the earth and re-create it amalgamating Heaven and Earth where the righteous will reign with him forever in time unending eternity; if this makes me "Amillennial", then so be it.

I believe that in the fall three evils were created; 1) the devil is now the ruler of the air during this present evil age and his Kingdom is dominant in this world presently; 2) mankind have been separated from God by sin and an exilic curse and 3) as a result of this the world is prone to destruction and death is the result of all things cursed! Yet I believe that God set into motion a plan to defeat all three (not just sin) of these enemies. In the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ we have the defeat of the Devil, Sin and Death; this is the biblical doctrine of Christus Victor! That Christ did not just die to "cover our sins", rather he also defeated the powers and effects of Sin and those elements that keep us separated from God. It isn't just "you are forgiven" (Penal Substitution), it is also, "now go and sin no more"; if this places my over-arching view of the Atonement under the umbrella of "Christus Victor", then so be it.

And finally, I believe that "a mere ad hoc reading of the scripture - searching Scripture with a particular issue in mind while failing to grasp the overarching themes and ideas - obscures the essential message of the Bible" and results in a misunderstanding of those particular issues. It is with this "overarching theme" in mind that the above beliefs have been formed, and it is because of this overarching theme that I have rejected the dichotomies of those beliefs. This overarching theme is called "Creation and Covenant"; and if this makes me a "Covenantal Theologian" today then so be it.

Everything that I have just covered presents in a nutshell where I presently am in my theological pilgrimage with or without labels; labels do not define me they only serve to help in giving definations and "shorthand" to my ever fluid and unsettled and ever grow understanding of God and his Word. May I - and may you - forever grow and remain unsettled in our theology as we follow the lead of an Unsettling God. And with that, let me make a suggestion by way of a book I recently read. If what follows sounds detached from what I have written so far or somewhat redundant it is because I originally planned on presenting it as an introduction to a post on Open Theism; I have mildly edited it. I should note that the blog on Open Theism was one of the few blogs I was actually looking forward to writing; alas it will have to wait for some future unknown date ;-)

The next post is called, "Time to Unlearn A Few Things"

Derek

Why I Am Amillennial: Part 2 (The one to read)

“Jesus is coming back! On this issue Evangelicals are united.” You can find this quote on the back of the late Stanley Grenz’s book, The Millennial Maze: Sorting out Evangelical Options. It is my opinion that differing historic “End Times” systems should be an issue of no-division. The early Church seemed completely comfortable with allowing each other to hold differing views of eschatology, specifically Amillennialism (hereafter: “Amill”) and Premillennialism (hereafter: “Premill”) – Postmillennialism (hereafter: “Postmill”) came about at a later time.

Search as you will in all of the historic creeds of Christendom and you will not find (at least not before Augustine) a single creed to narrow down Christian belief to a particular End Times system. You will not find – for example – in the Apostles Creed a statement to the effect of, “We believe in a literal millennial reign of Christ on the earth” or any variation thereof. For this reason I don’t believe we should allow our differing views – amill-premill-postmill – to divide our churches; we should not – in my opinion – have these views as a part of our denominational statements of faith. Each Christian should be allowed freedom to wrestle through these issues without having to conform to one view over the other at the compulsion of a denomination. Preach what we know for sure – Christ is Coming Back! – and leave the ambiguous details to God.

A History of the End of the World

Well actually this is a misnomer. I do not believe the world is going to end per se, neither has the Church throughout it’s’ history, and neither – I might add – does the scriptures. If by “end” we mean in the sense that the world “ended” once before by being destroyed or cleansed by water in the Flood and then recreated (Genesis 6-9) then I would agree, the earth will be destroyed and purified as in the days of Noah, only this time by fire and then it will be recreated (2 Peter 3). But if by “end” we mean that the space-time continuum will cease along with all physical matter and that we will spend eternity floating about in heaven, well that is not biblical. As Ben Witherington said, “It is never adequate theology to say ‘this world is not my home, I’m just passing through’ as if heaven were all that really mattered” (Imminent Domain p.53), because when heaven and earth become one (Revelation 21-22) then we shall forever be with the Lord… on this little round ball we call “earth”. But I’m getting off course; allow me to give a brief overview of the history of eschatology in the Church.

Amill is essentially (though sometimes debatably) the earliest and longest held view of End Times in the history of the Church. All of the Apostolic Fathers (first generation removed from the Apostles) were Amill save one – Papias. That is, Clement of Rome (after Paul), Polycarp (John’s disciple. Yup, that John), Ignatius, the Shepherd of Hermes, and the Didache were all Amill. Papias, whose writings we no longer have, was decidedly Premill – taking Revelation 20 literally (Premill here – and throughout this post – is to be understood as Historic Premillennialism, which is vastly different from the Dispensational Premillennialism which was invented around the year 1830). During the period of the Apostolic Fathers and Augustine individuals in the Church variously held one view or the other without contention. It was not until Augustine – who was decidedly Amill and wrote against Premill – that the Premill position was (in my opinion wrongly) declared heresy. For the next thousand years the Church universally held – more or less – to Amillennialism (as the Catholic Church remains today, though they probably wouldn’t call it that).

The Reformers where predominately Amill; though it was during this period that Postmill begins to enter the picture. Postmillennialism began to build major steam during the Enlightenment (naturally) and became the predominate view of End Times until their hopes seemed shattered with the onset of WWI. All of a sudden people began to see the world as getting worse (Amill and Premill) and not better (Postmill). Premill began to make a comeback – sort of, but not really. Actually, just before WWI broke out C.I. Scofield published his wildly popular Dispensational Premillennial Study Bible which would (unfortunately) become the number one selling bible in North America. With the sales of this bible, of Hal Lindsays Late Great Planet Earth, two World Wars, several block buster movies, bestselling novels, video games, TV evangelists’ shows, and the re-establishment of a nation called Israel among other factors; all of these worked together to fester a Dispensational “Premillennial” understanding of End Times in the twentieth century. Yet in the past twenty five years there have been some more popular attempts by writers of all Historic End Times perspectives to try and curve the Dispensational monopoly of our Americanized Evangelical cultural understanding of End Times. One just has to site books like End Times Fiction (by Postmill, Gary Demar), End Times Delusions (by Steve Wohlberg), A Case for Historic Premillennialism: An alternative for “Left Behind” Escahtology (edited by Craig Blomberg and Sung Wook Chung) and A Case for Amillennialism (by Kim Riddlebarger).

But who’s going to read these books? What exciting story to they have to offer? We are saturated in entertaining action packed thriller style End Times scenarios which excite our senses. It has not (and will not) be easy to dethrone Left Behind eschatology, not even with the scriptures in hand. But that is not to say it will be impossible, in fact if any of the historic systems are making a comeback today, I believe it is some variation of Amillennialism. We began this Church Age with this view, perhaps the Church Age will end with this view as well.

Why I Am Amillennial

What are our options? Postmillennialism has many similarities with Amillennialism, the big one being a symbolic interpretation of Revelation 20. Both these positions understand the 1000 years of Revelation 20 to represent symbolically the age of the Church in which Christ is seated on his throne at the right hand of the Father, while the Devil is bound in some way. What distinguishes the Postmill from the Amill is the nature of the millennium. For Postmill, the millennium is the Age in which the Gospel will spread successfully until the entire world – all nations – is converted. Four out of every five people worldwide will be committed Christians by the Return of Christ.

Postmill prides itself on having a “positive” approach to eschatology. They refer to themselves as the only tradition that can rightfully be called an “Eschatology of Hope”; that “hope” being that the Gospel will be effective worldwide, that the Great Commission will in fact succeed. I have two primary difficulties with this position: a) all traditions, even Postmill’s, acknowledge the fact that before the Return of Christ there will be a “Great Falling Away”. So no matter how “positive” Postmill’s believe their position to be, they must deal with this very negative reality. And b) history itself has (so far) attested against this interpretation. This is not to say the Postmill is wrong by default of not yet succeeding, it only adds doubt to this positions future. It could be that sometime in the future there will be a Holy Ghost fired up revival that engulfs the world thus proving the Postmill position to be right. Yet after reading several books by Postmills, I have not yet been convinced.

I could also add that Postmills have no right to claim a monopoly on the phase “Eschatology of Hope”. The Christians’ “hope” is not found in the success of the Gospel worldwide (though of course all Christians ‘hope’ for this among many other ‘hopes’ he have); in the context of eschatology, that is, in the context of the Return of Christ and the consummation of all things, the Christian Hope is found, not in a converted world, but in “the glorious appearing” of our Lord Jesus Christ according to Titus 2:13. This, according to Paul, is where all Christians should place their eschatology of Hope, and indeed we all do.

Like Amillennialism, Premillennialism recognizes that things are not going to get better, but that things will grow worse and worse culminating with the Return of Christ. The big difference between Amill and Premill, again is not that there is no millennium, but rather what is the nature of the millennium? As stated, Amill believe that the millennium is a symbolic period ranging from Christ’ first coming to his second; Premill on the other hand, while interpreting the bulk of Revelation much the same as Amill’s, read Revelation 20 literally. After Christ returns there will be a literal 1000 years in which Christ will rule on the earth with Satan bound. At the end of the 1000 year period the devil will be released, a rebellion will ensue and be crushed by Christ who then destroys the world and culminates all things.

I have several problems with this interpretation: a) the book of Revelation is the most symbolic book in the entire Bible. Why, out of every symbol in Revelation, is chapter 20 alone taken literally? This to me seems to be an inconsistent interpretative method; furthermore, b) if it is true – and it surely is – that Revelation more than any other book in the bible is dependent upon “the analogy of faith” (let scripture interpret scripture), then we have a problem with any interpretation of Revelation 20 that takes this passage literally: no other place in the scriptures is a literal millennial reign of Christ mentioned! There is also the problem of the Resurrection; c) other clear portions of the scriptures teach that we await one single resurrection of both the righteous to everlasting life, and the unrighteous to everlasting damnation, yet this passage in Revelation 20 seems to represent two (or more) resurrections; how is this reconciled with other portions of scripture (1 Cor. 15 et cetera)? The Amill’s answer is that there are in fact two resurrections, the first being Jesus’ own, and those who are “in Him” are also seated in heavenly places and “reigning” with him throughout this Church Age (as Paul says). We have also been given the Holy Spirit (who raised Christ from the dead) as a guarantee that we too will rise. This is the second resurrection.

So what does Amillennialism teach? I’ll allow another to define Amillennialism for me:

“When the trumpet sounds, things will take place simultaneously. Our Lord will begin his descent to the earth, the brightness of this event will put down Satan, and all the graves will be opened…. All the saints together will go out to meet the Lord and to escort him to the earth…. The unsaved… will be forced to bow the knee and acknowledge that this is of a certainty the Christ…. They will see the suffering Servant of the cross reigning now as Judge of the quick and the dead, and they will seek a place of hiding but will find none.” William E. Cox, (quoted in Grenz’s book p.152)

Of the three positions crudely surveyed here I find the Amill position to have incorporated the best of both. Furthermore, because this subject is so difficult to interpret I find the simplicity of the Amill position attractive, as Grenz says, “of the major eschatological chronologies, theirs [Amillennialists] is the simplest” [p.152]. To be sure this is not a simpleton understanding of things, but it is an honest one. I said earlier that I believe Christians should preach what we know – that Christ is Coming Back! – and leave the ambiguous details to God. But when you do this you may discover that you have become an Amillennialist by quite the accident. And when you factor in the archaic roots of this position it is difficult to not give the Amillennial tradition at least the consideration and respect it deserves even if, at the end of the day, it is to be rejected. But in the meantime, I find the Amillennial understanding of God’s word to be as consistent with them as Covenant Theology itself.

And that is why I am Amillennial today.

Derek

P.S. I welcome your questions.

Why I Am Amillennial: Part 1

The last post and the current one are inseparably connected, this is because Dispensationalism was rooted in a particular End Times theory that, in effect, created in itself a novel way to read the bible as a whole. I tried to explain – no matter how unsuccessfully – why I rejected the Dispensational approach to the scriptures and this has resulted in a necessary shift of “End Times” views. In fact, my rejection of Dispensationalism was not simply because the scriptures as a whole failed to make any coherent sense – though that is half the reason; I reject this view also because its’ approach to End Times itself was quite unsatisfactory. Even if Dispensationalism did make some attempt to answer the Big Questions of the last post, it is certainly crushed to powder – in my mind – under the weight of the innumerable “small questions” and interpretative acrobatics which is used to try and answer them. In effect, Dispensational End Times – for me – died the death of a thousand unanswered questions and questionable interpretations.

The first Christian movie I saw after becoming a Christian was a film put out in the ‘70’s called A Thief in the Night, a precursor to the modern Left Behind films. (I find it laughable today that in the film an elderly couple who received the “mark of the beast” was walking around with barcodes tattooed on their foreheads – but I’ll get to that ridiculous notion and its’ contemporary counterparts in a moment.) The movie essentially put the fear of hell in me. I determined in my eleven year old head that I was going to begin digging a giant pit in my backyard, cement the walls and ceiling, cover it with mud and begin stocking up on can goods! I was prepared for the “Great Tribulation”. But then I discovered in Church (thanks to a graphic bed sheet strung up across the platform) that I hadn’t understood the movie correctly. If we are Christians we won’t go through the Great Tribulation because we will all disappear to heaven before it starts. The people in the film who went through the Tribulation were people who knew better and became a Christian after the Rapture… people like my cousin who is now a practicing Homosexual with his “lover”, he used to be a Christian, and so he assured my mom that after he sees her “disappear”, he’ll know that the rapture has occurred and that it will be time to repent (according to Calvinist’ like Charles Stanley, my cousin won’t even need to repent: go ahead Troy, be ‘gay’, and not just in the ‘happy’ sense, because you know, ‘once saved always saved’ - but that's another post).

My mind travelled back and forth over the years between whether Christians will have to go through the Tribulation or not (pre- or post-tribulation). Ultimately I accepted the Pre-Tribulation theory albeit uncomfortably so. For that reason I want to (tongue-in-cheek) define this particular belief system by quoting Jason Boyett in his hysterical book, Pocket Guide to the Apocalypse:

Because the Tribulation will be no fun at all, what with all the destruction and pain, believers catch major air before it all goes down. Which sounds great, but Jesus doesn’t really seem to have gotten the memo about this plan when he details the end of the world in the Olivet Discourse (Matthew 24, Mark 13, Luke 21). Because he makes it pretty clear in this passage that the Rapture follows the Tribulation. Uh-oh. So pretribs ignore Jesus here and suggest that he’ll actually return twice. Once before the Tribulation, to “secretly” take us all to heaven via the Rapture. Then he jets back to his Father’s house to hang out for, oh, seven years or so. When things cool back down at the end of the Tribulation, he returns to earth again—this time in a highly visible, physical sense—to usher in his millennial reign. Nice. (p.115)

I realize that this is a crude articulation of Left Behind theology, but it essentially hit the big points that distinguish it from the other views – the secret Rapture and the Great Tribulation. There is also a mid-tribulation theory, and a theory that suggests that there will be many raptures throughout and a post-tribulation theory. All of these theories have one thing in common: A Seven Year Tribulation! But… what if I told you that biblically speaking, this concept does not exist in the bible! We have so taken it for granted that it is high time we return to the subject: where does the bible speak of a “Seven Year Great Tribulation”. Saying, ‘well there it is in Revelation’ or ‘there it is in Daniel’ is not good enough. Simply put: neither Daniel nor Revelation teach a Seven Year Tribulation. And as far as a “Great Tribulation” goes, the phrase is only used in Matthew – once – and even their there are two factors to consider: 1. the context is clear, explicit and specific: the generation of the disciples, “that generation” will be the ones to go through this tough period, not some future unknown generation! And 2. why is it that no one ever takes into consideration the great conditionality of “IF”? The passage doesn’t even give us a guarantee! It says that IF a specific event happens in winter, and IF someone is pregnant or nursing during this specific event, THEN it will be a Great Tribulation and presumably only for the pregnant or nursig mother or those who endure the winter (unless seven years are to pass without any summer, spring or fall)!

I do not want to get tangled up in explaining all the nonsensical things which Left Behind asserts. I want to move on quickly into why I am Amillennial. But here are a few food for thoughts I want to leave you with before I continue this post in the next blog: Revelation more than any other book in the Bible is dependent upon the rest of the scriptures for interpretation.

Left Behindists always assert that there will be a physical mark of the beast on the right hand, without which no one can buy groceries. In the seventies the mark of the beast was envisioned as a bar code, in the nineties it was envisioned as a computer chip, and in the new millennium it is often seen as a retinol scan (but most often still the computer chip). But the text is clear; the mark will be on the right hand AND THE FOREHEAD. Who on earth would get a tattoo of a bar code or a computer chip on their forehead. Can you imagine grocery shopping and having to run you forehead along the scanner – absurd. In the book of Joshua the Israelites were commanded to bind God’s word to their right and their forehead, indicating that they were to think (head) and do (right hand) what God’s Word said. By Jesus’ day the religious leaders took this spiritual command and made it so literal that they put little pieces of scripture in phylacteries (boxes) and tied them to their heads. Dispensationalists have the same interpretive mind set, resulting in the same error of missing the point of the scriptures!

Could the mark of the beast be indicating those who think (head) and do (right hand) what the beast wants? Wouldn’t this indicate that those who do the things of the Lamb have also a “mark” from God, marking them out as belonging to God? Hadn’t Jesus told the Pharisees that if they were Abraham’s children they would do (right hand) as Abraham did, but in fact they were doing as their father the devil (marked out by their actions). Didn’t God give Cain a “mark” which protected him from others in the world? But it is always God’s children – Abel – who are not accepted and thus persecuted (to buy or sell symbolizes acceptance in a society). As Jesus said, the world loves their own but they hate those who belong to God.

The Left Behind literal interpretational technical has another more serious consequence I just want to momentarily mention: if in the 70’s the mark of the beast was ‘bar codes’, if in the 90’s it was computer chips, and if in the new millennium it is retinol scanners; that is, if interpretation of biblical text is dependent upon forever changing current events then on what grounds does the bible retain any meaning? God’s eternal Word is drained of its substance.

Another ‘obvious’ issue I had as a young Christian – and it always blew my mind that nobody addressed this most obvious ‘hiccup’ of a literal and sequential interpretation of Revelation – involves the “last trumpet”. I was taught to read Revelation in chronological order. Paul teaches that the Resurrection and the “rapture” both occur “at the last trumpet” (1 Cor. 15). The phrase “last trumpet” presupposes that there a series of trumpets, because how else could there be a “last” one unless there were some before it. In Revelation there just happens to be such a sequence of trumpets, but the “last trumpet” occurs not in chapter 17, 18 or 19, but rather back in chapter 11. And with this “last trumpet” the scriptures proclaim: “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ and he will reign forever and ever.” And yes that is back in chapter 11.

These represent just two of the countless hiccup’s which I, a late teen early twenty something, easily observed without having to be taught otherwise. If Left Behind theology didn’t tell such a great story it probably wouldn’t be around today accept as a fringe system where it belongs, and as it is it has no respect in the academic halls of credible biblical institutes.

It was out of necessity that I had to deal, albeit shallowly, with a dispensational approach to End Times. Most folk (i.e. the common folk who only read fiction, watch movies and read current event prophecy books) and who listen to pastors – who themselves simply know no better thanks to their traditio – speak as though Left Behind theology is simply the end times theology of the bible and of Christian history. A pastor once sat down with a friend of mine after overhearing that he thought my friend was teaching a mid-trib rapture theory. The pastor tried to correct my friend by tell him that their denomination is pre-trib, not mid-trib. My friend – well versed in the denomination's statement of faith – informed the pastor that their denomination only says that they must be Pre-Millennial, it says nothing about pre-mid-or-post- tribulation. The conversation ended abruptly, evidently because the pastor had no idea what my friend was talking about.

So then, with the Left Behindism behind us, what options remain for the Evangelical Christian?

To be continued…
Derek

Why I Am Covenantal

I am Covenantal by quite the accident. My journey from Dispensational to Covenantal theology is a testimony to the positive effects of Post-Conservativism at its’ finest! Becoming a covenantal theologian has proved to be the greatest, most fruitful, and insightful change from one doctrinal (traditional) position to another which I have ever experienced.

I say that I became a covenantal theologian by accident because I did not seek out to become covenantal, I did not read books by covenantists, I didn’t even know covenantal theology existed; all I did – being the post-conservative that I am – is ask question and read my bible. I understand that things are not quite that simple, nonetheless this is how it all began; and the results have had a positive domino effect!

I was raised in dispensational theology. To me (and I suspect to most dispensationalists in the pews) dispensationalism was simply what the bible taught and what all Christians everywhere and always believed. Dispensationalism is, at risk of oversimplification, “Left Behind” theology. I’ll use these terms interchangeably because like myself, many people probably have never heard the word “dispensationalism”, so if I say Left Behind theology it’ll keep everyone on the same playing field. When I say Left Behind theology I mean books by guys like Tim Lahaye, Hal Lindsay, Mark Hichock, David Jeremiah, Grant Jeffrey, John Walvoord, and Joel Rosenburg just to name a few. In other words, Dispensational Theology, Left Behind Theology, is rooted in a particular understanding of “End Times”.

Here is the key which this post hangs: in order for Left Behind guys to come up with this understanding of the End Times they had to invent a new way to read the bible. This new way they invented around the year 1830 is called Dispensationalism. The key which dispensationalist hinges on is the persistent and stubborn insistence to maintain a clear and sharp distinction between Israel and the Church. There are TWO peoples of God and Two plans of God. This interpretive lens gets even sharper: When the Messiah first came he attempted to establish the Kingdom of Heaven by sitting on the Jewish throne as David’s heir as the Jews expected. The Messiah was going to destroy the enemies of Israel and establish peace on earth. However, Israel rejected the Messiah as their King and instead crucified him. As a result, God postponed his plans with Israel and turned his attention to the Gentiles, i.e. the Church. But this “dispensation” called the “church age” (an inconvenient side effect of Israel’s rejection of the Messiah) will end with God taking his church out of the way by means of a Secret rapture and will then turn his attention back to Israel.

In other words, redemptive history for the dispensationalist looks something like this: God elected Abraham and his descendents to be his special people. He gave them the law which included the sacrificial system to atone for sins. The children of Israel rebelled and ended up in Exile, but God delivered them from exile, sent them the Messiah to be their King (… Church age… oops) to defeat the nations of the world and to rule on David’s through forever. This is the part of Left Behind theology that has avoided the popular eye. The church which in parenthesis (…) is the dispensational understanding of the New Testament, Christ’s work on the cross, the Resurrection, and you and I; all of this is the great “oops” of God’s redemptive history.

So I read and I reread and I wrestled and I studied and I asked questions and then I read again and again and again and finally in frustration I asked the question: where the heck is all of this stuff! Where is the great divide between Jews and Gentiles? Paul said God is no respecter of persons and that there is neither Jew nor Gentile for all are one in Christ! I am compelled to ask the question: what if the Jews had not rejected Christ as their King? The cross – God’s answer to the problem of the fall – would have never occurred, neither would the resurrection and humanity would be lost in their trespasses and sins without hope, how could the cross be the “oops” if it was the plan all along? How were the Jews “saved” by the law with its sacrificial system if the scriptures are very explicit that animal sacrifices could never take away sins? How were the Old Testament saints saved? Why would God arbitrarily choose Israel for salvation leaving the rest for damnation? What relevance does the Old Testament have to the Church today aside of moral teachings and the such?

These were huge questions for me. This entire approach to the scriptures leaves them wholly disfigured. Nothing makes any sense. This invention of the dispensationalists to make up this new way to interpret the bible (which was not new to me at all) in an effort to support a particular End Times theory leaves the bible on the cutting room floor, loose leaves all over the place. Everything is arbitrary, inconsistent, and full of discontinuity.

I began to blame myself. I suspect that a part of the reason why I am writing this blog is because there are those out there (probably lots of you) who are in a similar situation, and also blaming themselves. If the bible doesn’t make any sense it is because we are too stupid to grasp it. We must hang on to a hand full of “key” passages as a hope that we are on the right track; these hand full of passages having been given us by the “professionals”, i.e. the great grandparents passed them down the line until you one day heard them in Sunday School. We love to read the Rosenberg’s, the Laheys, the Lindsay’s, and we know they can’t be wrong because just look at current events. Just look at how this event or that event matches up with this or that verse in the bible. How could they be wrong? So if the rest of the bible doesn’t make sense, if we are too stupid to grasp it then that’s okay. Just leave it to the professionals, hang on to your handful of favorite passages and shut up and sit down.

But have you ever considered that you are not as stupid as this doctrinal approach to the bible makes you feel! Give yourself some credit, give the Holy Spirit some credit, and the give the bible some credit for heaven’s sake! To be sure there are very many difficult things in the bible, and for these we rely on the professionals to help us return to the Bible times. But there is also a "natural reading" of the bible which testifies against the Dispensational approach. That is why whenever someone comes in to buy their first bible I always recommend that they first get a plain text bible without study notes, and I encourage them to read it through from front to back first before they allow someone to stick ideas in their head. What I am convinced will happen is that later when someone tries to fill their head with a dispensational worldview bells and whistles will go off because the dispensational approach goes against (not with) the flow of the scripture and redemptive history.

As I read the bible, my "Left Behind" theology seemed to make God arbitrary. Yet I refused to believe that God is arbitrary so the pad answers to my questions never satisfied and I knew there had to be another way – the post-conservative that I am. While taking a Pentateuch class in Bible College I made the mistake of mentioning the “Old Testament Saints” and referred to them as the “ekklesia” – i.e. the Old Testament church. I got chastised by my teacher, was sternly told that they were “under the law” and at the top of the page on our final exam was written in big bold type: You are in no way to relate Israel to the Church or use words like “Grace” (or something like this). Later that year a fellow student approached me in a different class and she asked me a question that I had spent many a year’s asking; she asked, “Derek, how were the Old Testament people saved?” (This was before class started and only we and the teacher were in the room), I tried to whisper so as not to cause contention with the teacher, “Well, this school teaches that they were saved through the law and sacrificial system. I believe that they were saved by grace through faith”. Despite my silence, the teacher, Mrs. Holmes, over heard. She came and said in a sweet old tone: “By law? Balderdash! No one gonna tell me there was no grace in the Old Testament!” I wanted to grab this saint, give her a bear hug and swinger her through the air in delight; it was the most encouraging thing I heard all year. When she passed away that summer, to my still pain, the school lost one of its most keen and fair minded teachers.

I was primed and ready to understand the bible differently, but how? Was there another way? As a matter of fact there was and all that would be required was for someone to point the way. There is where O Palmer Roberstson's book, Christ of the Covenants comes in, and later (and more enlightening) was N.T. Wrights book, “Climax of the Covenant”!

When God called Abraham he did so with the intention of redeeming all peoples – indeed all of creation. God’s call to Abraham was to set into motion a plan that would undo the effects of the fall. God’s covenant with Abraham was both unconditional (Gen. 15: God placed his own life on the line) and conditional (Gen. 17). The situation was not that all ethnic Israelites would be saved no matter what; rather only those circumcised (which we later discover was supposed to be an outward expression of a circumcised heart as Exodus tells us) were a part of God’s covenant with Abraham, and this included “strangers and aliens”, i.e. those who are not descended from Abraham physically could still partake. “Israel” was more of a concept, a changed name, than a physical entity. The nation was to embody the concept, it is not a mistake that Israel means “Prince with God”; if you remember, Adam was created as a co-regent with God, a ruler of this world under God. Israel’s call was to embody Adam’s original call: those who were circumcised in the heart were a part of God’s covenant with Abraham and therefore the answer to the problem of the fall. It was no mistake then that God gave Israel a “promised land" which was a land bridge between the three major continents of the world at that time: Egypt, Asia, and Mesopotamia. Israel was to be a light to the world and the “concept of Israel” was to spread to all nations. Of course this did not happen because of one crucial set back: Israel was still “in Adam”, that is, they could not be the answer to the problem because they themselves were still a part of the problem. They were wholly disobedient to God and as a result found themselves in Exile; this mirrored Adam’s disobedience to God and his own Exile from the Garden of Eden, an Exile which humanity has forever since been in. Israel’s Exile only proved that they were a part of the problem.

But what about Genesis 15 and God’s unconditional promise to Abraham in which God staked his own life on the line? He would need a “true Israelite”, a representative of Israel someone who would succeed in perfect obedience to the point even of death, the death of a cross (Phil. 2). And through this perfect Israelite, obviously Christ, a new creation would be born – an undoing of the effects of the fall. This was the first Resurrection; Christ’s own resurrection. Now if we are “in Christ” (that is, in Israel) by the faith of Abraham than we are in the Covenant of God and a part of the family of God. And this is why Paul could write that we the church are the “Israel of God” (Gal. 5).

The scriptures for the first time make the greatest of sense. God is not longer arbitrary, he is a purpose driven God. The scriptures are no longer disjointed, they are holistic. And that is why I am a Covenantal Theologian today.

Derek

(P.S. I have developed different aspects of this blog elsewhere: click here)