Think Apocalyptically?

A Study of Matthew Chapter 24, Part 6 -- Matthew 24:4
(Stay tuned for more posts until study of Matthew 24 is completed.)

And Jesus answered and said to them, "See to it that no one misleads you." (Matthew 24:4)

In part 5 of our study, I suggested that many believers have been misled throughout most of Church history in the area of eschatology (future events leading up to the consummation of history). In recent times, many believers are being misled by the Preterist approach to prophecy in the Bible. Preterism assumes that the major prophetic portions of the Scriptures, such as those in the Olivet Discourse (Matthew 24 and 25) and the book of Revelation, were fulfilled in the events associated with the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70 by Rome.

In recent years, Preterism is being fueled by a misinterpretation of the apocalyptic literature in the Bible. Apocalyptic is one of the genres of literature represented in the Scriptures. Genre is a word that comes to us from the French, meaning kind or species. When applied to biblical studies, genre refers to the different types of literature represented in the Bible. A particular genre is a group of literary works in which common traits in elements of content, form, and function have been recognized. We recognize biblical genres because we see them in the context of the larger world of ancient literature. The are six major genres in the Canon:

1. Theological Narrative--Biblical communication through the recording of events (e.g., Genesis through Esther, and Matthew through Acts)

2. Poetic Literature--Biblical communication with rhythm and often high emotion (e.g., the Psalms. Elements of poetry are also in Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon, and in parts of the Epistles)

3. Wisdom Literature--Biblical communication in generality to motivate the reader to live responsibly with a sense of accountability to God (e.g., Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and James)

4. Prophetic Literature--Biblical communication characterized by confrontation, exhortation, and often prediction (e.g., the Old Testament Prophets, major and minor)

5. Epistolary Literature--Biblical communication in discourse for the purpose of instruction (e.g., the Epistles, and some of Christ's teaching in the Gospels)

6. Apocalyptic Literature--Biblical communication which unveils and views the conflict in the world, future events, and the end times through a heavenly lens (e.g., portions of Isaiah, Daniel, Zechariah, Revelation, and portions of the eschatological discourses of Jesus in Matthew 24-25; Mark 13; Luke 17:20-37; Luke 21:5-38)

It is important to note that a number of genres are often represented in a particular book of the Bible. For example, while Matthew's Gospel is mainly narrative, the Olivet Discourse contains prophecy and apocalyptic.

Of all the genres, apocalyptic is the most cryptic and mysterious. Apocalyptic literature is heavily symbolic, so commentators often differ with one another as to what the symbols mean. This genre often communicates through pictures, and interpreters have different ideas as to just how to understand the images. Just what the images represent and how they relate to historic or future events is often the subject of heated debate.

There has been a recent trend among some evangelical interpreters to more or less lump together the apocalyptic in the Bible with the host of non-canonical writings that emerged during the intertestamental period and continued into the first two centuries. Writings such as The Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs, Ezra, Enoch, The Apocalypse of Baruch, and The Assumption of Moses share common features, such as visual images, extensive symbolism, angelic guides, and a focus on the end of the present age and the inauguration of the age to come. Because the apocalyptic literature in the Bible contains some of these attributes, it is argued (often by Preterists) that the biblical apocalyptic must be interpreted within the context of non-biblical apocalyptic. This new method of hermeneutics does away with the solid, conservative principle of assuming the author desired to be understood in literal terms, unless there is compelling evidence from the text that would dictate otherwise. That principle is replaced with the principle that symbolism and allegory are assumed unless the text informs the interpreter otherwise. There is definitely symbolism and allegory contained within biblical apocalyptic, but there are also specific persons and events: and there is prophecy.

An important point that Grant R. Osborne makes is that, "It is impossible to distinguish ultimately between prophecy and apocalyptic, for the latter is an extension of the former."[1] In fact, John calls his book an apocalypse in Revelation 1:1 (The Greek word translated "revelation" is apocalupsis.). But he calls the same book prophecy in Revelation 1:3. The imagery of biblical apocalyptic can represent reality generally or specifically, and I think that Darrell L. Bock makes a good point about the interpretation of the apocalyptic in the Bible when he says it is "...not a matter of literal versus figurative/allegorical approaches, but of how to identify and understand the reference of the figure in question."[2]

Preterism, with its supposed insight into the apocalyptic genre, is suddenly finding great popularity. A pastor I know, who was a premillennial dispensationalist for thirty years, has recently adopted the Preterist position and is now challenging the members of his congregation to learn to "think apocalyptically." He is now convinced that the thousand year reign of Jesus Christ, mentioned six times in Revelation 20, is not a literal thousand years during which Christ will reign in his prophesied kingdom. In his new viewpoint, the apocalyptic in the Bible has "radicalized" and reinterpreted the prophets and shown their words to be fulfilled in the present Church, which he calls the "eschatological Israel."

I fully understand the importance of genre classification with regard to the accurate interpretation of the Bible, but there are abuses of genre classification as well. The oldest apocalyptic is in the Bible, and it was born out of prophecy and never came to stand out in absolute contrast with prophecy. Therefore, biblical apocalyptic is the genuine apocalyptic. The true apocalyptic genre began in some of the writings of Isaiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Joel, and Zechariah. The non-canonical apocalyptic literature began to emerge in about 250 B.C. and flourished when the Jews were under the pressure of Antiochus Epiphanes. This literature was a vehicle of the Hasidic movement and became a religious-political tool. The non-canonical apocalyptic was not prophecy. In fact, it emerged well after the last book of the Old Testament was written, a time during which God was not providing prophecy. Because prophecy had ceased during a frame of about four hundred years, the writers of apocalyptic thought it necessary to explain the delay of God's kingdom and the suffering of God's people. Apocalyptic became a literary form which tended to rewrite history as pseudo-prophecy, while not even claiming to be prophetic. Not only was the extra-biblical apocalyptic not prophetic--much of it was just bad literature! G.B. Caird described 1 Enoch as one of the world's six worst books, and he said that 4 Ezra (2 Esdras in the Apocrypha) was responsible for many of the worst features of medieval theology.[3] I can imagine a Jewish writer of the second century B.C. reading the book of Daniel and thinking, "Hey, I think I could write like that!" The apocalyptic genre became a literary style without being inspired by an actual divinely revealed apocalypse.

Here is my question: Do we interpret Old Testament apocalyptic by the standards of the non-prophetic, non-inspired apocalyptic literature which came later? Or, do we interpret Old Testament apocalyptic in its own right--in its own development within the Canon? After all, Old Testament apocalyptic is the original apocalyptic! My point is, the extra-biblical apocalyptic was an aberration of the original!

Now, it is true that in the non-canonical apocalyptic literature, numbers often represented concepts more than literal count units. But let’s consider what the result would be if we choose to interpret the Old Testament apocalyptic within its own time and not by the features of the non-canonical literature which came later. I think that it is very significant that in Daniel 9:2, Daniel was observing in the Scriptures the number of years revealed to Jeremiah that the people would be in captivity (and that was, without dispute, a literal 70 years), and then Daniel received the information on the 70 units of 7 prescribed for Daniel's people, the Jews (Daniel 9:24-27). Since the 70 years in captivity were literal years, is there any reason to assume that the 70 units of 7 were not to be taken literally? I don't think so. And, is there any indication in the development of apocalyptic in the Old Testament that new standards of interpretation must be adopted? Is there an indication that eschatological events are not to be taken literally? None that I know of.

When we come to the Book of Revelation, do we assume that the numbers in the book, such as the 1000 years, should not be taken literally because of the way that numbers were used in the some of the non-canonical apocalyptic? Or, do we refer to the genuine article and the roots for the apocalypse John received: the Old Testament apocalyptic--where the numbers mean the numbers? To me it only makes sense to interpret the Book of Revelation and other eschatological portions of the New Testament, like Matthew 24, by going to the Old Testament roots. In Revelation there are many hundreds of allusions to Old Testament passages. Let’s compare spiritual with spiritual (1 Corinthians 2:13). The Bible is its own commentary: I’m really not that concerned with what kind of form that literature took on outside of the Bible, and I’m certainly not going to use non-canonical writings as a standard for interpreting the Scriptures!

One of the greatest challenges modern communicators of doctrine face is their incomplete understanding of the times and cultural background in which the Bible was written. We have some writings and artifacts, and some archaeological ruins, but there is always the problem of our distance from the biblical world. We’ll never understand the ancient world as precisely as those did who inhabited it. With regard to the interpretation of the one thousand years in Revelation 20, I do find it meaningful that the early Christian writers of the first and second centuries, Papias, Justin Martyr, and Irenaeus were all born when apocalyptic literature was still being written--and all three believed the thousand year reign of Christ to be a literal one thousand years! Now, I’m not saying these men and others did not have some strange ways of applying that thousand years historically--but my point is, they interpreted the thousand years literally, and they did not have the previously mentioned problem of distance from the time in which Revelation was written. They were no doubt very familiar with the apocalyptic genre, being born while it was still being published! (It is believed that Papias, in his youth, may have been a student of the Apostle John.) Premillennialism appears to have been the dominant view in the Church until the time of Augustine, though there were some who were not Premillennialists.

I understand the necessity of recognizing figures of speech and symbolism in the Bible. However, references to the one thousand years in Revelation 20 describe a period of time marked off by events specifically taking place both prior to it and after it. To allegorize the Millennium and to remove the distinction between Israel and the Church, Christ's Body, is to send repercussions throughout the way we interpret the whole realm of the Canon. How we view the very essence and integrity of God is affected. Does He actually keep (and possess the ability to keep) the promises He has made to those to whom He made the promises? If His promises to the racial species He established through Abraham are not to be taken literally, then maybe the promises He made to the members of Christ’s Body are not to be taken literally.

In the apocalyptic language of Revelation, John often conveys truth through correspondence. By comparison, he is equating things from the world in which he lived to the future events he sees in the vision. Through this language, we are able to perceive a solid outline of the events which will occur during Daniel's seventieth week, and the believers who live during that time will be able to make sense of many of the finer details that we may not understand.

Footnotes:
1. Grant R. Osborne, Baker Exegetical Commentary of the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2002), p.13.
2. Craig A. Blaising and Darrell L. Bock, Progressive Dispensationalism (Wheaton:Victor Books, 1993), p.93.
3. David M. Williams, The Book of Revelation as Jewish Apocalyptic Literature, http://www.geocities.com/athens/forum/5951/ntb519c.html
Scripture quotations taken from the NASB.http://www.lockman.org/

See To It That No One Misleads You

A Study of Matthew Chapter 24, Part 5 -- Matthew 24:4(Stay tuned for more posts until study of Matthew 24 is completed.)

And Jesus answered and said to them, "See to it that no one misleads you." (Matthew 24:4)

The disciples who came to Jesus privately on the Mount of Olives had just asked Jesus a question about how the destruction of the temple would fit in with the rest of God's prophetic plan: specifically, the end of the age and the Coming of Christ to rule His prophesied kingdom. Jesus introduced His response with a caveat: "See to it that no one misleads you." In order for them to cope with the unique seven year period prophesied by Daniel (Daniel 9:24-27), Daniel's seventieth "week," they would need to accurately understand the nature of prophetic events and their sequence. Although the Church, Christ's Body, will no longer be on earth during Daniel's seventieth week (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17; 1 Corinthians 15:51), it is important for us to not be misled as to the events of eschatology (future events leading up to the consummation of history), so that we may see how the unique dispensation in which we live fits into the framework of God's overall plan for mankind. It is unfortunate that the Church, on the whole, has been misled in the area of eschatology since the fourth century.

More than twenty years ago, one biblical truth that became ever so clear to me personally is that God has a plan that involves a specific agenda for Israel, the spiritually regenerated, racial species of Abraham; and an entirely different agenda for the Church of this present dispensation, a dispensation about which nothing had been disclosed until the ascended Christ conveyed the details to Paul by direct revelation (Ephesians 3:2-9). In the early fourth century, a paradigm shift in theology obscured this distinction between Israel and the Church. In my book, Then the Proconsul Believed, I explained the concept of the paradigm shift:

The word paradigm comes from the Greek word paradeigma, a pattern. A paradigm, in a general sense, is an example serving as a model. The word is commonly used today to mean an assumption; a frame of reference; the way we perceive things to be. In 1962, Thomas S. Kuhn was responsible for popularizing the term in his book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, which shook the foundations of the scientific community. In it he described how the real scientific breakthroughs of human history are the result of breaks with traditional ways of thinking, in which old paradigms are replaced by new and competing ones.

For example, in the 2nd Century, Alexandrian astronomer Ptolemy's paradigm was a universe with the earth at its center and the sun revolving around it. This notion was defended for centuries, even as conflicting evidence increased. Over a thousand years later, Copernicus replaced Ptolemy's model with the new and controversial theory that the earth and the other planets revolve around the sun. In Kuhn's view, science is not a steady and cumulative gathering of information, but a series of relatively peaceful periods of time broken by revolutions of thought through which new paradigms replace old ones.

Kuhn described the change which causes scientific revolutions as a "paradigm shift." Though Kuhn believed that existing paradigms must be lived in and explored before a break can be made, a scientific revolution occurs when an older paradigm is replaced in whole or in part by new and incompatible one. In a paradigm shift, the new paradigm does not build on the preceding one, but supplants it.[1]

In Theology Adrift: The Early Church Fathers and Their Views of Eschatology, Matthew Allen notes Kuhn's coining of the term, "paradigm shift," and suggests that paradigm shifts have "changed the world of thought (some for better, some for worse) in a fundamental way."[2] Allen then goes on to describe a paradigm shift in history and another in theology, both of which changed the world of thought for the worse. The historic paradigm shift Allen recognized was initiated by Constantine's Edict of Milan:

From a political perspective, Constantine's Edict of Milan, issued in AD 313, constituted the formal beginning of a major paradigm shift that signaled the end of the ancient world and the beginning of the medieval period. That edict legitimated Christianity and impressed upon it the Empire's stamp of approval.[3]

"Hi, I'm From the Government and I'm Here to Help You!" was a post in which I wrote about the profound change brought about by Constantine's Edict of Milan (click here to read). Under the edict, religious persecutions were abolished and liberty of worship was declared for all. Constantine himself had professed faith in Christ and invited his subjects to join him. Three centuries of the cruel persecution of Christians had been ended.

It looked like the principle of freedom to obey God without interference had finally been recognized and embraced by the human race. But alas, Constantine turned out to be the quintessential politician, seizing every possible opportunity to gain the political support of both Christians and pagans throughout the Empire. Constantine went out of his way to make concessions so that Christianity would be more appealing to the heathens. Sunday (named for the sun god), the weekly holiday of the pagans, was declared to be a legal holiday ("holy day"). With the exception of farming when necessary, work on Sunday was outlawed, which made many pagans very happy.

But Constantine became very popular among Christians, too. He proclaimed Sunday the "Christian Sabbath," and more and more legislation provided privileges for Christians. The Church received large gifts of financial support from the State. The State payed for lavish church buildings (which happened to resemble pagan temples). The Roman government also provided tax exemptions, political appointments, exemptions from military proscription, and other benefits to those who converted to Christianity.

The sad result was that many pagans "converted" only because of the incentives they received from the government. The Christian church had become thoroughly paganized, something that never would have happened had the Church and State remained separate.

If that wasn't bad enough, it was not long after the reign of Constantine that the ancient Roman practice of persecuting those whose religions were not permitted was suddenly applied in a different way: Emperor Theodosius I issued an edict in AD 380 that established Christianity as the exclusive religion of the Empire. Those who deviated from the form of worship approved by the State were punished as heretics. What had appeared to be a new era of righteousness and freedom of religion had turned into an era of corruption and religious tyranny.

Allen goes on to note the theological paradigm shift, but in order to make any sense of what he describes, we must recognize the three theological approaches to the one thousand year reign of Christ mentioned six times in Revelation chapter 20. They are Premillennialism, Postmillennialism, and Amillennialism.

Premillennialism (which I believe is the correct view) is based on a literal, or normative method of Biblical interpretation. In the premillennial view, Christ will return to the earth prior to the one thousand year reign, inaugurate His prophesied kingdom on earth, and reign over that kingdom for a literal period of one thousand years. The early Church was largely, though not uniformily, premillenial in terms of eschatology. The early Christian writers, Papias (who wrote in the first half of the second century and when young may have been a disciple of the Apostle John), Justin Martyr (who lived from AD 100-165), and Irenaeus (who wrote in the second half of the second century), were premillennialists.

Postmillennialism holds that man, through the effect of the gospel, will bring in the kingdom, and after one thousand years of man's progressive improvement, Christ will return. Postmillennialism is relatively new, being traced to Daniel Whitby, a minister who lived in the seventeenth century. Postmillennialism declined significantly in the second half of the twentieth century. Postmillennialists had been persuaded that the First World War had been the war which would end all wars, and the gospel was now going to purify the world. Then, two decades later, the Second World War came, which really took the wind out of their sails!

Amillennialism takes a non-literal view of the one thousand years of Revelation 20. The amillennialist views the thousand years as symbolic of a spiritual kingdom operating during an unspecified period of time, the time between Christ's two advents. The amillennial system was pioneered and developed by Augustine of Hippo (354-430), using Origen's allegorical method to interpret eschatological events.

Now then, back to Matthew Allen. Here is the theological paradigm shift he recognized:

From a theological perspective--specifically an eschatological one -- the Edict of Milan also signaled a monumental paradigm shift--from the well-grounded premillennialism of the ancient church fathers to the amillennialism or postmillennialism that would dominate eschatological thinking from the fourth century AD to at least the middle part of the nineteenth century. Yet ... the groundwork for this shift was laid long before Constantine issued the Edict of Milan in AD 313. In the two centuries that led up to the edict, two crucial interpretive errors found their way into the church that made conditions ripe for the paradigm shift incident to the Edict of Milan. The second century fathers failed to keep clear the biblical distinction between Israel and the church. Then, the third century fathers abandoned a more-or-less literal method of interpreting the Bible in favor of Origen's allegorical-spiritualized hermeneutic. Once the distinction between Israel and the church became blurred, once a literal hermeneutic was lost, with these foundations removed, the societal changes occasioned by the Edict of Milan caused fourth century fathers to reject premillennialism in favor of Augustinian amillennialism.[4]

Augustine thought that the Church is the spiritual kingdom of God and is presently in the Millennium, though not a literal millennium of a thousand years with Christ bodily reigning over the earth. Can you see the correlation between the historical and theological paradigm shifts described by Allen? Bad doctrine in the Church paved the way for the political antics of Constantine and the readiness of the Church to get into bed with the State--and in turn, the corruption that resulted contributed to more bad doctrine! As the Church became an instrument of the State, there no longer seemed to be an interest in the grand theme of Bible prophecy: the reality that Messiah will return to earth and establish His kingdom. People assumed that the marriage between church and state indicated that Christ's kingdom had come! Then, by the time Augustine was formulating his doctrine, he became disillusioned because the prophesied kingdom described in the Scriptures did not match the condition of the world in which he lived. Therefore he concluded that the one thousand year earthly reign of Messiah could not be literal. If it existed between the two advents of Christ, as Augustine supposed, the kingdom must be a spiritual kingdom only, existing in the hearts of believers who are faithful to Christ.

In the last 150 years, the truth of Premillennialism has, to a large degree, been recovered within the Church. However, Amillennialism is on the rise again, and the results could prove disastrous in both the political and spiritual realms. Let us heed the Words of Christ: "See to it that no one misleads you."

Footnotes:
1. Lee Griffith, Then the Proconsul Believed (Prescott Valley, AZ: Finished Work Fellowship), 2006, pp. 1-2.
2. Matthew Allen, Theology Adrift: The Early Church Fathers and Their Views of Eschatology, http://bible.org/article/theology-adrift-early-church-fathers-and-their-views-eschatology.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
Scripture quotations taken from the NASB.http://www.lockman.org/