Whatever school of prophetic teaching we favour, four features of our Lord's Second Coming belong in it if it is to be Biblical in any sense at all.
His return will be ...
1. Personal - this same Jesus shall so come
2. Visible - as you have seen Him go into heaven
3. Unpredictable - of that day and hour no one knows
4. Final - one will be taken and another left
Any who profess to know when it is going to happen are either dishonest or self-deceived. There will indeed be signs to tell us when the end is near - but not how near. One would have thought that this was enough. Unfortunately, it is not. What Christians believe about the Second Coming is complicated by three considerations at least:
1. the destiny of the Jews
2. the Great Tribulation
3. the Millennium
Of these three, the Millennium is the crucial one; what we believe about that more or less decides what we believe about the other two.
The Millennium is referred to in only one chapter of the Bible, Rev. 20 - a period of one thousand years during which Satan is bound so that he may not deceive the nations, and during which the martyrs live and reign with Christ. The way we understand that passage largely determines how we think the Bible outlines the shape of the future.
Broadly, speaking there are three ways in which Christians see it. The three views are labelled:
Pre-Millennial - the Second Coming happens before the Millennium
Post-Millennial - the Second Coming happens after the Millennium
A-Millennial - there will be no literal Millennium: the phrase is symbolic of the Gospel Age
The chart below illustrates the differences between the contending views:
The present age will come to its climax with the Second Coming of Christ Part I, at which time the church on earth will be "caught up to meet Him in the air" and share the Marriage Supper of the Lamb Heaven with Him in Heaven. For a period of seven years there follows on earth a time of great tribulation, which reaches a climax in the Battle of Armageddon, and ends with Christ's return Part II, when He finally overwhelms all human opposition.
The Millennium follows - a thousand year period in which Christ sets up a visible, earthly kingdom which He rules personally from Jerusalem. This period ends with a further time of testing when evil, which has been restrained throughout the Millennium, will be allowed a final expression, only to be ended with the General Resurrection and the Last Judgment. There then follows the setting up of the New Heavens and the New Earth.
The present age will see a steady progress of the Gospel throughout the world until the world is eventually "Christianised." Whilst evil will not be entirely eliminated from human life on earth, it will be so severely restricted that earthly society will become, near enough, the 'Paradise' of which men dream and of which the Bible speaks. Only at the close of this long period of peace and righteousness (the Millennium) will the Second Coming occur, and it will be followed at once by the General Resurrection and the establishment of the New Heavens and the New Earth.
The Millennium itself is not to be understood at all as the promise of a literal earthly kingdom. Rather it is to be understood as picture language describing the Lordship of Christ throughout the whole of this age, during which Satan is so bound as to be powerless to prevent the spread of the Gospel through the world.
There will in fact be no earthly paradise of the kind suggested by the other two views until the new earth and the new heavens are introduced. The present age will see the conflict between the forces of good and evil intensify to the point where the personal return of Christ in power and great glory will end it at a stroke. History will end with the Second Coming; the world as we know it will "pass away," and the New Heavens and the New Earth will take its place.
The Second Coming, the General Resurrection and the Last Judgment will all happen together at the same time.
We may well ask how the study of the same Scriptures by equally sincere men can yield such different conclusions. The answer is not a simple one. Some of the complexities are as follows.
1. The Book of Daniel
The book of Daniel contains a prophecy (9:24-27) forecasting events through a period of "seventy weeks" of years, from the time of Daniel himself down to the time of Christ. A week of years is seven years, so the period under review is 490 years.
There are those who hold that the events foretold for the seventieth week are yet to be fulfilled. It is as though at the end of the 69th week God said, "Stop the clock." The countdown has been 'on hold' ever since, and will be restarted at the Second Coming. Others believe the events foretold for that week were in fact fulfilled at the time of Christ's first coming.
Those who hold that this prophecy has yet to be fulfilled understand it to foretell The Great Tribulation: a period of seven years during the first half of which a world ruler emerges who makes a covenant of peace with the nations; but in the second half he opposes himself to all religion ("causes sacrifice and offering to cease" v. 27) and commits "abominations" (exalts himself as God) and brings on a final dreadful war of devastation. This is then linked with II Thess. 2:1-12; the "prince" of Daniel 9 is identified with the "man of lawlessness", whom the Lord Jesus "will slay with the breath of his mouth," and is further identified with the "antichrist" of I John 4:3. The Rapture, I Thess. 4:13-18, is then slotted in at the beginning of the Great Tribulation. The pattern becomes:
1. The Gospel Age ends with the 'rapture of the saints' (I Thess. 4:17), the Second Coming Part I.2. There follows on earth the Great Tribulation in which Antichrist emerges, rules the world, commits his abominations and precipitates a war in the Middle East which ends with the Battle of Armageddon. (Rev. 16:16)
3. This ends with the 2nd Coming Part II: Jesus descends from heaven, plants his feet on the Mount of Olives, splitting it in two (Zech. 14:1-5), utterly destroys antichrist and his armies (Rev. 19:17-21), and so introduces ...
3. The Millennium (Rev. 20)
4. The Millennium ends with Satan being loosed to foment a final rebellion against God on the earth; but fire comes down from heaven to consume the armies, the devil and his angels are cast into the Lake of Fire, and the General Resurrection leads to the Last Judgment at the Great White Throne.
There are those, however, who believe the prophecy in Daniel 9 was fulfilled at the time of our Lord's first coming. In the sacrifice of the Cross, He "put an end to transgression and atoned for iniquity." Christ Himself was the "anointed one who was cut off" (Isa. 53.8). The phrase "... and shall have nothing" of v. 26 should read "but not for Himself" (meaning He died for others). The "strong covenant he confirmed" is the New Covenant which Jesus announced at the Last Supper, and by the sacrifice of Himself He caused the ancient ritual of "sacrifice and offering to cease." The desolation referred to was the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70 when the Roman armies laid Jerusalem utterly waste (the Roman Empire is the last of the empires Daniel saw in vision) and committed abominations in the Temple.
So on this view there was no 'hold' in the prophetic 'count-down': the 70th week followed immediately on the previous 69.
2. The Book of Ezekiel
In its last 11 chapters the prophecy of Ezekiel contains two awesome visions of the future, which, if they are to be understood literally, have certainly not happened yet.
The first is of an enormous human conflict in the land of Palestine (Armageddon) which will truly be "the war to end all wars," ending in a victory by God over all human opposition so crushing that there remains no doubt thereafter of His reality and power. The Jews are re-established in their land as religious leaders of the world.
The second vision is of a new Temple built in Jerusalem (its description is extremely detailed), and the reinstatement there of the ancient ritual of sacrifices practised in Old Testament times.
How these two visions are interpreted depends on whether they are understood literally or figuratively. If they are to be understood literally, they are certainly future, and require something like the Millennium of the Pre-Millennialists to see them fulfilled at all. On the other hand, there are those who ask how on earth a temple and a ritual of sacrifice on the pattern of the Old Testament could ever be contemplated (much less set up by the Risen Christ Himself) in the light of all that is said in the Epistle to the Hebrews (in passages like 10:1-18 e.g.). In view of that, they say, the visions (both of them) simply have to be interpreted figuratively, and not pressed literally. To the objection, "But if they're to be understood figuratively, how do you account for the extremely detailed nature of the vision?" they answer, "But that is true to the 'idiom' of Eastern language. By piling on the detail, you intensify the meaning, that is all. Ezekiel, limited as he was to the Temple's as the only pattern of worship he knew, was simply drawing an idealistic picture of worship as he understood it."
3. The promises to the nation Israel of a golden age of prosperity and faith
There are many prophecies in the Old Testament which promise such an age: e.g. Isa. 11:6-9, 65:17-25, Ez. 39:21-29, Hos. 3:4-5
Again, it is a question whether these prophecies are to be understood literally or figuratively. If they are to be understood literally, then we must somehow fit into our vision of the future a long period of time in which the nation of Israel - with her Messiah ruling it - is revived in the land of Palestine. But there are those who see the Church as the 'New Israel', replacing old Israel entirely in God's purpose, so that the church has taken over, not only Israel's task, but also the promises once made to her. Those promises are no more to be taken literally than is the idea that Israel should again replace the Church, or the land of Palestine replace heaven in the promises.
4. Which prophecies about Israel have been fulfilled?
There is the further difficulty of deciding which prophecies about Israel have been fulfilled and which have not. So many of them promise a regathering of its scattered peoples, and it is tempting to see them as being fulfilled in our day, following the setting up of the State of Israel in May 1948.
What complicates the issue is that the Jews were once before in their history dispossessed of their land, and then regathered in it, at the time of Nebuchadnezzar the Babylonian and Cyrus the Persian. And since the Old Testament prophecies were written before, during and after that time, it is not at all easy to be sure when any particular prophecy was written, so as to know if it had its fulfilment then, or still awaits its fulfilment. Those who insist that only a Millennium can provide for the fulfilment of many of them seem to ignore the possibility that ample provision may be made for their fulfilment - without time limit - in the New Earth.
5. The Book of Revelation
Finally there is the vexed question how the book of Revelation is to be interpreted. Does it supply a programme of events from the time of our Lord's resurrection down to the time of His Second Coming ... and beyond? And if it does, are we to understand its visions literally or figuratively?
Or are we to understand it quite differently? Not as a vision of future events, but as a profound statement, in highly symbolic language, of the way in which Christ risen and ascended is exercising His rule over the world's life, until He brings history to a triumphant climax in which all evil is finally cleansed away, and a New Heaven and a New Earth established in which righteousness dwells?
There are other difficulties too, beyond the five listed above: how many 'judgments' does Scripture foretell, and how many 'resurrections', and how many 'Kingdoms' does it refer to? But those listed are enough to illustrate the complexity of the task. Trying to evaluate the respective merits of the three schemes really is an involved process, and unless we are prepared to do a very great deal of patient hard work, it seems best to stick simply with the basic affirmations we began with: that Christ will return personally, visibly, unpredictably and finally. Whichever programme of events may turn out in fact to follow His Second Coming, for those who are living at the time it will all be purely academic; for them it will be "the end" anyway: all the theorising in the world will mean nothing at all.
But for those who do want to pursue the study, then for what it is worth let me suggest a couple of guidelines.
1. Old Testament prophecies do not have to be interpreted literally
One of the principles often enunciated is that they do. But Jesus Himself did not do so.
(a) Example 1: The last prophecy the Old Testament contains is Mal. 4:5, "Behold I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and terrible Day of the Lord comes. And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and of children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the land with a curse."
That reads like a plain, downright, no-nonsense prophecy: Elijah, who went up by a whirlwind to heaven, will return in person to earth. But when the disciples asked Jesus about that prophecy, He said plainly that it had been fulfilled in the ministry of John the Baptist. (Matt. 17:12, Mark 9:13)
Was John the Baptist literally Elijah, then? If he was, then Jesus here affirmed a belief in reincarnation! Either John the Baptist was literally Elijah, or he was not. If he was not (and the disciples had just seen Elijah in person on the Mount of Transfiguration; there was no doubt in their minds that Elijah and John were two different people) then Jesus interpreted the prophecy figuratively, not literally ... in which case figurative interpretations of prophecy cannot in principle be wrong.
So the principle 'Always interpret literally' is not binding.
(b) Example 2: Ezekiel's vision of the restoration in a new temple of the Old Testament scheme of sacrifice.
The letter to the Hebrews, particularly ch. 10, states categorically that that pattern of worship was "done away with", when the "one, full, perfect and sufficient sacrifice for sins had once been offered" by Jesus as the true High Priest at the Cross. As to the sacrifices in the reconstituted Temple having a 'memorial' significance only (as Schofield avers), it is surely inconceivable that the Lord would replace the memorial component of the New Covenant which He Himself established in the Lord's Supper with the Old. So Ezekiel's vision has to be understood symbolically, however elaborately its symbolism has been worked out. It was in fact quite in keeping with Eastern idiom to elaborate details simply as a way of emphasising a point. Ezekiel knew no other pattern of worship than the Temple ritual of the Old Testament; all he was doing was to paint of picture of perfected worship the only way he knew how to do so.
Perfected worship is the one real point he was making. And if that is accepted, then the same considerations have to apply to the earlier vision of chs. 38-39. That too must be understood simply as a vision, expressed in the best picture symbols available to Ezekiel, of a final conflict between the forces of good and evil.
These two examples by no means answer all the questions. But at least they indicate that in our desire to be true to the Scriptures, we are not bound to accept the elaborate scheme of the Dispensational Pre-Millennialists.
The second guideline I would suggest is ...
2. Start with Jesus and the Apostles, not with Ezekiel, Daniel and Revelation
The Old Testament prophecies and those in Revelation have to be fitted into the scheme Jesus and the Apostles outlined, not the other way round. I do not see why Paul's dictum in I Cor. 3:11 should not apply to this area of truth as to others: "For no other foundation can any one lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ." Truth here, as truth elsewhere, should surely be "built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone." (Eph. 2:20)
And unless it be insisted that the time of tribulation referred to in Mark 13, Matt. 24 and Luke 21 applies to the Great Tribulation of the Pre-Millennialists and not to the literal destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70, (Luke 21:20 suggests that the latter is correct), then there is no indication in the Gospels or the Epistles of any elaborate programme of events to follow the Second Coming. The clear impression given, rather, is that our Lord's return marks the end of the age with final judgment.
Whatever view we hold, we shall not in any case tie up every loose end. (I Cor. 15:22-28)
Finally, I commend a dictum which should guide Christians in all discussion of issues like these:
"In things essential, unity; in things doubtful, liberty; in all things, charity."
It is on things essential that the Gospels and the Epistles concentrate; the personal return of Christ in power and great glory and final victory is underscored again and again. Hold to that, and on the rest reserve judgment.
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