Re: [asa] A theology question (imminent return of Christ)

Hi Ed,

For what it's worth, I agree with pretty much everything you say (including, incidentally, that the early Christians believed the the final judgment would be in their lifetime - they clearly understood Jesus as teaching such a first century return even their understanding was in error - apologies for not being clearer).

My primary point of difference in the emphasis I put on the various data.

Succinctly, I consider eschatology to be in philosophy of science terms an issue of "theory under-determined by the data."

Indeed, the evidence you cite: the expectation of the early Christians, disagreement amongst theologians, the somewhat confused nature of the Biblical account, etc, seems to me to very strongly support the view that dogmatism on this point is very much unwarranted.

This is why I try to subsume all these various data in the "big picture" view I wrote of. To me the PRIMARY focus should be on the "always potentially immediate" return of Jesus, NOT on speculations as to the where and when. And, I think contrary to your assertion, there IS common (if not universal) acceptance of this amongst Christians in all ages and in all traditions. Personally, I'm happy to go with the majority opinion!

More than that, I'm really happy with a HUGE degree of ambiguity on the issue and I don't really have much to say except perhaps to draw attention to the obvious POINT of the Gospel's eschatological teaching - which is to urge diligence amongst Christian believers. Obviously to engender diligence, though, one has to BELIEVE in an "always potentially immediate" return. And, as I've repeatedly acknowledged, the ONLY logical inference that the first Christians could make in their context is that, therefore, Christ would return in their lifetime. This is, to me, a quite unremarkable observation.

Equally unremarkable is that Christians for the last 2000 years have believed the same thing - that the "always potentially immediate" return of Jesus meant he would return in their lifetime. The inference is the only sound conclusion from the claim. And their error on the matter drives me to no conclusions whatsoever EXCEPT that they took the claim itself seriously.

Much more could be said but unfortunately time prevents me from engaging with the issue at any greater depth, I'm afraid. But I'm sure you won't mind if I take your advice and simply forego "having a faith that's not sewn up neatly & etc." Life's too short and, as the current thread suggests, we need to spend our time being about more constructive things!

Blessings,
Murray Hogg
Pastor, East Camberwell Baptist Church, Victoria, Australia
Post-Grad Student (MTh), Australian College of Theology

Edward T. Babinski wrote:
> Hi Bernie and Murray!
>
> Murray, did you receive a copy of my initial email to Bernie? It's included below, following this reply.
>
> Murray, your "big picture" approach only works if all theologians can agree on the picture, but they don't. There are Dispensationalists (of different kinds who disagree with one another), and Preterists (again of different kinds, the Partial and Full Preterist views being at odds with one another), and "historicist" approaches to interpreting Revelation. And there's the errant approach of some amillennialist Catholic and Protestant scholars as well that simply lets each verse, Gospel or letter say what it says, and they admit inconsistencies and difficulties face those who attempt to harmonize all such things, and that such attempts have so far proven inconclusive.
>
> I know it's difficult having a faith that's not sewn up neatly and tidily that you can walk around in and feel confident and show off to others, and instead have to admit -- as other theologians point them out -- that instead, threads are hanging out from one's suit, or one's "armor" has loose rivets, chinks, and some holes in the chain mail. But hey, that's life. And humans with human ideas and expectations appropriate to their day and age wrote the Bible. They were not ventriloquist's dummies whom God was merely using to write a book that 20th century conservatives would later employ great ingenuity in "proving" to be an "inerrant" book.
>
> I notice you focused on a few verses that say no one knows the time when the Son of Man would return. There are some verse in the Gospels, parallels of one another, and one in Acts to that effect. But there are far more verses in the Gospels and in N.T. letters that say otherwise (see my initial letter to Bernie for some examples, or see the books listed at the end of this email).
>
> One must also recognize that after a while the church began making excuses for the failures of the many straightforward predictions of the Lord's soon return in the N.T. ("One day is as a thousand years" was the excuse found in 2 Peter.) But why invent such an excuse in a late-penned letter if no obvious nor embarrassing predictions of the Lord's soon coming were ever made in earlier letters?
>
> Speaking of "no man knowing the time," the verse in Mark (with parallels in Matthew and Luke) says that no man knows the "day or hour," not "the time." The overall time before "all these things will be done" is given in that same section as being a "generation." Or as Strauss pointed out over a century ago:
>
> "[Naturally there is a distinction] between an inexact indication of the space of time, beyond which the event will not be deferred (a 'generation'), and the determination of the precise date and time (the 'day and the hour') at which it will occur; the former Jesus gives, the latter he declares himself unable to give."
>
> And having admitted that he did not know the precise "day or the hour," Jesus continued to address his listeners as though that "day or hour" could not be far off: "Therefore be on the alert, for you [his listeners, circa 30 A.D.] do not know which day your Lord is coming... at an hour when you do not think he will." [Mat 24:36,42,44] Compare Luke 21:36: "But keep on the alert at all times, praying in order that you [his first century listeners] may have strength to escape all these things that are about to take place, and to stand before the Son of Man."
>
> As professor James D. Tabor explains: "In the [end-times chapters of the gospels], Mk 13, Mat 24, and Lk 21, Jesus connects the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple to the more general 'signs of the end of the age': false prophets, war and disruptions, earthquakes, famines, pestilence, persecution, and a world-wide proclamation of his message... The scheme is very tightly connected, and Jesus declares at the end that 'this generation shall not pass away until all these thing are fulfilled'" [Mk 13:30].
>
> Speaking of which Prof. Edward Adams, author of The Stars Will Fall from Heaven: Cosmic Catastrophe in the New Testament and Its World (Library of New Testament Studies 347, 2007) delves into conclusive evidence for a belief in the end of the created world in works written either just before or during the N.T. period, works such as 1 Enoch, Pseudo-Sophocles, Jubilees, other Dead Sea Scroll writings, the Testament of Moses, the Testament of Job, Pseudo-Philo’s L.A.B., 4 Ezra, 2 Baruch, the Apocalypse of Zephaniah, 2 Enoch, and the Sibylline Oracles, and in the N.T. from the earliest N.T. letters of Paul to the last written N.T. book.
>
> To mention a few other theologians and two esteemed Christian apologists (besides the Wesleyan theologian whom I already mentioned, who wrote IN GOD'S TIME), all of whom agree that predictions of the imminent coming of the Lord and the final judgment of the cosmos proved erroneous:
>
> James D. G. Dunn, major Brit theologian, moderate Evangelical and friend of N.T. Wright, and author of Jesus Remembered, admits Jesus and the apostles were mistaken.
>
> Dale C. Allison Jr., another theologian, author of Jesus of Nazareth: Millenarian Prophet. And, The Apocalyptic Jesus: A Debate.
>
> Bart D. Ehrman, author of Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999). He has an audio series on The Historical Jesus which covers this topic, though not as thoroughly as his book: http://www.teach12.com/ttcx/coursedesclong2.aspx?pc=Professor&cid=643
>
> Paul Johnson, defender of Christianity whose works include A History of the Jews, A History of Christianity, and a booklet in which he defended his belief in the historicity of the Gospels (a booklet popular with evangelical Christians), admitted in A History of Christianity: "The whole of Jesus' work implied that the apocalypse was imminent; some of his sayings were quite explicit on the point... The prima facie view of the Jesus mission was that it was an immediate prelude to a Last Judgment. Hence the urgency of the pentecostal task, an urgency which Paul shared throughout his life ['...brethren, pray for us that the word of the Lord may spread rapidly...' 2 Thes 3:1], so that his final hope was to carry the good news, while there was still time, to Spain - for him, 'the ends of the earth.'"
>
> C. S. Lewis agreed that Jesus made was in "error" predicting that his generation would live to see the coming of the Son of Man in final judgment: "The answer of the theologians is that the God-Man was omniscient as God, and ignorant as Man. This, no doubt, is true, though it cannot be imagined. Nor indeed can the unconsciousness of Christ in sleep be imagined, not the twilight of reason in his infancy; still less his merely organic life in his mother's womb." ["The World's Last Night" in The World's Last Night and Other Essays (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1960).]
>
> To Bernie, I think the author of IN GOD'S TIME does the best at explaining how to reconcile a belief in Jesus' divinity and God's inspiration with an erroneous prediction. Though in the end it's a matter of learning to live with uncertainty or with difficulties. Life is like that. Being human is like that. And there have always been similar difficulties such as reconciling the N.T. author's useage of O.T. verses with the original contexts of those O.T. verses. Even after millennia and clouds of explanations, difficulties remain. And no explanation or interpretation is itself inerrant.
>
> I would also add something here, a bit off topic perhaps, about the intensity of the early church's beliefs. I mean per the story in Acts, which may or may not be true, it says a married couple who were members of the early church were struck dead immediately after lying to Peter that they had "given all they had" to the church. But what about Christians today who claim to tithe and give 10% of their total income to the church but who are lying about doing so? They aren't struck dead immediately, are they? The first century believers seem to take their religion far more seriously and even far more deadly than today's believers do. Another example in 1 Cor. where Paul is speaking about the Lord's Supper and who important a practice it is for them all to get together and eat, and how one must celebrate it properly, not in drunken revelry, nor by having the wealthy in the congregation eating most of the food and others starving or getting little. Paul even
> speaks in the same deadly serious fashion as in Acts when the couple was allegely struck dead immediately for lying. For Paul writes in 1 Cor. 11: "Anyone who eats and drinks without recognizing the body of the Lord eats and drinks judgment on himself. THAT IS WHY MANY AMONG YOU ARE WEAK AND SICK, AND A NUMBER OF YOU HAVE FALLEN ASLEEP... JUDGED BY GOD." So Paul interpreted the sicknesses of "many" in the church, and even some "deaths," to an improper practice of the Lord's Supper. But do today's churches believe God is THAT judgmental, smiting people with illnesses and killing some, or as Paul says in 1 Cor. 11:29-20, "judging" and "disciplining" the church in such a DEADLY fashion "so that we will not be condemned with the world?" Talk about separating the wheat from the tares! Ouch! God doles out diseases to "many" and even "death" because of how people behave in church? And He keeps a keen eye peeled, judging both the practice of the Lord's Supper,
> and the monetary offering (as in the case of the couple in Acts struck dead for lying about how much they gave). Whew.
>
> And Murray doesn't believe that same early church also believed the final judgment was near? They did. They certainly did, if you read all the verses I mentioned in my initial email below.
> --

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Received on Fri Oct 10 03:07:01 2008