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An archive of Jacob Nannie's Sermons & Teachings
This lecture is the final lecture in the Shawnee Believe Corps class.
It's on the doctrine of the end times, but I titled it "An Eschatology of Hope," and though
the book focuses on—and the article of faith, really—focuses on Christ's return and the
doctrine of hell, I decided to leave those topics for discussion and instead give our
class a foundation of what it means to have an eschatology of hope and what eschatology
really means.
I believe eschatology is much more broad than what we'd make it out to be.
Eschatology, for those who don't know, is the word, fancy theological word for the study
of the end times, and oftentimes that gets caught up in studying the times of the end
and world events, but I think we miss the fact that the doctrine of the end times starts
in Genesis and ends with Christ's second coming.
And so it's a much broader, more general focus, and within that broader view of the end, we
can have hope.
And so that's what this lecture is about.
It doesn't really address Christ's return, doesn't address tribulation or the rapture
or the doctrine of hell.
It addresses the listener on why you should be hopeful when we talk about the doctrine
of the end times.
All right, I'm going to get us started like a minute early, so we have a minute left afterwards.
There's a lot to discuss for this lesson, this chapter, this doctrine, and I'm going
to say at the outset, just based on the discussions I'm hearing, I might disappoint you quite
a bit in what I'm going to talk about.
There is a lot to talk about when it comes to the doctrine of the end times, of Christ's
return and of hell, and people tend to get really worked up about these things.
And I think a better way to approach this lesson is to give us a framework of how to
think about the end times rather than talk about timeline of events, different views
of the millennium, or the doctrine of hell.
All of those things are important, that's why they're in the statement of faith.
All of them pertain to the framework, but I titled the lesson An Eschatology of Hope
because I think that's what we should feel when we talk about this.
So I just want to preface with that just in case I let you down, let you know early.
But I also want to talk about – what's that?
Oh, I'm going to get there.
I'm going to give you a rich definition, rich definition of eschatology, and I want to talk
about those other things.
So after the lesson, if we want to talk about the different views of the millennium or hell,
let's go there, but let's start with a framework.
So right after high school, I got really into eschatology.
I was really fascinated with theology in general, but I got really into eschatology, probably
because when I was a kid, I was scarred by the Left Behind series.
We just talked about that, scar all of us.
Yes.
I never read the books, but I saw some of the movies in a Christian school I went to,
and sometimes I'd come home and no one's answering their phone, no one's home, and I'm like, this
is it.
They need to stock up on the food I can find as a 10-year-old and figure it out.
I got left behind.
But I remember having really long discussions and debates with my grandmother about this
topic, the timing of Christ's return, the tribulation, how to interpret current world
events and more.
My grandmother has been a devout Christian her whole life, and at this time, my whole
family probably, she knew the most about theology, and so I would talk to her about it.
But she and I had a very different eschatology, so I'm going to define that word in a second.
She, for example, is a dispensational, pre-tribulational, premillennialist.
That's a mouthful, right?
In my position, then and now, I'm a post-tribulational, post-millennialist, partial-preterist.
Another mouthful.
I understand that some of us might not have any idea what that means, and that's kind
of my point, is it doesn't matter, really.
That's okay if you don't know what it means, because the point is that whether you take
my position, my grandmother's position, or a third, different position, eschatology leads
us to something.
Her eschatology led her and a whole generation of people who believed generally the same
eschatology as she did, to sit with their hands folded, waiting for Christ's return.
They had theologians of their day, like J. Vernon McGee, really popular, who would align
with my grandmother's position, and he's famous for quoting, or he quotes, I don't know if
he's famous for it, "You don't polish brass on a sinking ship."
That's really telling of how you view the world and your place in it.
So what we believe about the end times is important, and it really does impact how we
live.
And if we're not careful, we'll end up taking J. Vernon McGee's words too seriously and
too literally, and sit with our hands folded, doing nothing for God's kingdom, and just
waiting for his return, all the while disobeying his commands.
An escapist, eschatology is what that is, waiting silently for Christ to come pick us
up like it's a bus stop out of this evil world, is not what the New Testament teaches, nor
is it what we find in our statement of faith.
So let's read our statement of faith together.
Remember that this is Article 9 and 10B, 10A was paired with Article 5 a couple weeks ago.
Let's read this together.
We believe in the personal, bodily, and glorious return of our Lord Jesus Christ.
The coming of Christ, at a time known only to God, demands constant expectancy, and our
blessed hope motivates the believers to godly living, sacrificial service, and energetic
mission.
We believe that God will raise the dead bodily and judge the world, assigning the unbeliever
to condemnation and eternal, conscious punishment, and the believer to eternal blessedness and
joy with the Lord in the new heaven and the new earth, to praise his glorious grace, amen.
So tonight I want to show us that there is an eschatology of hope within this article,
statement of faith.
The end times don't have to be scary.
They don't have to be depressing, they don't have to be dark.
For a lot of us, they are those things, those of us who read Left Behind and were scarred
by it.
But for that, we need to find what we mean by eschatology.
Here we go.
What does eschatology mean?
Eschatology is a fancy and technical word, but it's really quite simple.
It comes from the Greek word "eskatos," which means "last" or "last things," really just
kind of just means "the end."
Essentially eschatology is a study of the end times.
It's a study of last things.
But I don't think it's limited to that in the way we conceptualize what last things
means.
I think we can broaden our scope of what eschatology actually is.
Again, people tend to get very excited about this, they get excited about thinking of timeline
of events, what's happening in Israel today, and how does that impact the coming of Jesus?
Some get excited in positive ways.
It's fun to talk about, and it really does energize us for a mission, and some get dogmatic
about it and really aggressive when discussing these things.
And I think that's due to a narrow view of what eschatology is.
I think that's the negative, and actually some of the positives are due to zeroing in
on what's happening right now and how can I calculate the return of Christ.
So I want to broaden our scope for two reasons.
I want us to avoid becoming dogmatic and pessimistic when approaching this tough topic.
And I also want us to see the beauty and glory in the study of eschatology and the reality
of eschatology.
It's not just concerned with events that happen at the end, it's the timing or the timing
of Christ's return and the doctrine of hell.
Those are important things.
That's why they're in the statement of faith.
Those are central things in eschatology.
So if those are central, why then should we broaden our view and what again do we mean
when we say eschatology?
A book titled "The New Dictionary of Biblical Theology" gives a great, succinct definition
of what I mean and what we're kind of aiming at when we say eschatology.
Eschatology is a direction and goal of God's active covenant faithfulness in and for his
created order.
This language here is devoid of any timeline of events.
It's devoid of Christ's return.
And so it includes those things because that is a direction and goal of God's active covenant.
This is a nice broad view of what we're talking about when we talk about eschatology.
Eschatology is a study of what God is ultimately doing in and for his creation.
When we talk about eschatology, we mean God's end goal.
What is he bringing about for creation?
Now with that in mind, that kind of makes our statement of faith seem quite narrow.
And it should be.
Again, it's focused on Christ's return and final judgment.
It avoids all the details about a long biblical theology of eschatology.
It should be that way.
It's a statement of faith, not a systematic theology.
You can go even deeper than just this one book on this one topic.
So it should be narrow.
And we'll see that these two events again and again are important.
They're the culmination of this.
And we could discuss many things in this lesson and I want to discuss those at the end.
I truly do.
I'm not avoiding them.
But instead, we're going to talk about just four things tonight.
So first, I want us to go through to give us a framework.
The last days or the end times in the Old Testament.
What does the Old Testament say about "the last days"?
And then from there, wouldn't you guess it?
The last days in the New Testament.
What did the New Testament say about them?
And then this theme of already and not yet.
What is that?
What does it mean?
Why is it important?
And then really, truly important to me is living as Christians in the last day.
How should we live in light of eschatology?
Scholar G.K.
Beale wrote a great book, thick book, I have not worked my way through it, it's so dense.
But it's called "A New Testament Biblical Theology, the Unfolding of the Old Testament
and the New."
I recommend it.
It's a great book.
It discusses in there that really this whole book is a book about eschatology and how from
the beginning, God had an end goal in mind and he's working this out through the story
of the Bible, even down through today.
It's a book about eschatology and he details how many ways the end really is in the beginning.
The end goal for God's creation is not in the beginning, but it's pictured in the beginning
and it's at the forefront of the reader's mind and Adam and Eve's mind in the beginning.
God was working his end goal in and through Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden.
Adam and Eve, they had the goal of this work as priests and kings over all creation and
they were tasked or mandated to bring about the fullness of creation.
So in other words, Adam and Eve were created, not created in the end.
Sorry, I'm messing my sentence up here.
They were not created in the end, yeah.
They were not created perfect.
It's not as if when they were created and placed in the garden, that's all God had for
them and they're just to enjoy it.
They were given a task to multiply, subdue the earth, have dominion over it.
Perfect means having all of the required or desirable elements, qualities, or characteristics,
as good as it possibly could be.
Or perfect can mean absolute or complete.
Adam and Eve were not created with all that is desirable and required of the new heavens
and new earth.
They weren't created evil, they weren't created bad, they weren't created incomplete
in the sense of lacking God, but they haven't reached their fullness yet and the earth and
universe haven't reached its fullness yet, even though it was created very good.
Adam and Eve were not placed in an absolute complete world.
There was work to be done, more to be had.
They had a mandate to bring about the fullness of creation and to usher in creation's completeness.
Here's what G.K.
Beale says about this.
He says that this goal was eschatological, this mandate, this commission of Adam and
Eve was eschatological in nature, since it is apparent that the eternal state would have
commenced for Adam and creation once this objective was reached, and final judgment
would have been pronounced and executed upon their primordial antagonist.
It's just dramatic language, primordial antagonist, scholars tend to do that.
So the eternal state, the new heavens and new earth would commence once Adam and Eve
reached the mandate that they were given.
In other words, it's wrong to think that Adam and Eve were created in a final paradise.
They were created in a paradise, a really good place, but it was meant to grow.
The new heavens and new earth is not the creation as it was in the beginning.
It was the end goal.
It was not the new heavens and new earth at that time.
Beale also defines what the end means.
So what does the new heaven and new earth look like if it doesn't look like the Garden
of Eden?
It has five characteristics, and we'll return to this again towards the end.
Five characteristics of the new heavens and earth.
The first one is victory over evil.
Second is ultimate security against committing sin.
Protection from corruption of the body, protection from corruption of creation, and union with
God in the eternal state, of which marriage is a foretaste of something that's a real
small part of what union with God would be like in the end.
And so Adam and Eve, when they were created, they didn't yet have victory over evil.
They still were tempted by the serpent.
They didn't have ultimate security against committing sin.
They still had the freedom to commit sin in the garden.
They didn't have protection from corruption of the body.
They would have had to go to the tree of life to have that protection from corruption.
And their goal was to go out into creation to protect creation from being corrupted as
well.
And they had union with God.
They had God with them in the garden, but they also had to have marriage as a foretaste
of what complete union would look like when the new heaven and new earth came.
And so they don't have the opposite of these things, but they also don't have the fullness
of these five characteristics either.
We know that this is not what they achieved either.
They were not victorious over evil.
They fell into temptation.
They disobeyed God.
And because of that disobedience, on the day they ate their fruit and committed the sin,
their bodies began to decay and creation began to decay.
And they were separated from God, kicked out of the garden.
The rest of the Old Testament is filled with prophecies about a new Adam or a new people
who was a corporate Adam that is also mandated to bring forth the fullness of God's creation.
Did you guys need that five back up again?
Okay.
Ethan Collins, there he is.
So what we see in the Old Testament is a cycle of new Adams, Adams and Eves.
Noah is a new Adam tasked with starting over again almost.
And actually Genesis 9, once the ark lands, really mirrors Genesis 1 through 3.
And then, you know, as the time goes by, the nation of Israel as a corporate Adam is meant
to carry out this mandate to be a holy nation of priests to cleanse the world as it was
and bring about this new heaven and new earth.
The first time the last days is mentioned is in Genesis 49 where Jacob gives prophecies
to all his sons.
He prophesies that all of his sons will fail except for one of them which is Judah and
the tribe of Judah.
And he says, this is a crucial verse in Genesis 49 verse 10, "The scepter will not depart
from Judah nor the ruler's staff from between his feet until Shiloh comes and to him shall
be the obedience of all people."
There's a narrow focus in mind that the tribe of Judah will come to govern earthly kingdoms.
But in that is the last days focus of new heaven and new earth which will come through
the tribe of Judah.
And who ultimately came through the tribe of Judah?
Jesus.
So the Old Testament is filled with similar prophecies.
God's people will have a Savior in the last days who will fulfill what Adam and Eve were
mandated to fulfill.
And as Daniel says, he will be given dominion, I mentioned this verse in my sermon on Sunday,
he'll be given dominion and everlasting kingdom and all peoples will serve this kingdom and
bow down to this kingdom.
And his people will steward this kingdom and join in on the mandate to bring about its
fullness.
Ultimately the Old Testament is, oops, I'm sorry, I didn't put that verse up.
Ultimately the Old Testament is a narrative framed as God's progressive re-establishment,
bear with me here, I use too much high language here.
The Old Testament narrative is framed as God's progressive re-establishment of his eschatological
kingdom through covenant and redemption which culminates in a global commission for the
faithful.
It's God working out his covenant to bring about the fullness of his creation and his
kingdom through his people.
God doesn't do this as his people stand by, he uses his people to bring about the kingdom
fullness and we see this throughout the whole of scripture and it reaches a crucial and
climactic point in the New Testament.
The themes of the last days of eschatology in the New Testament are central and vital.
The end times are not a peripheral thing in the New Testament.
They are front and center, it's not a sideline.
Eschatology is not something we have to strain our eyes to look for and find in the pages
of the New Testament.
It's front and center.
Why is it so central to the New Testament writers?
Well, on their day a very big event took place.
What was that event, anyone?
This is a good question.
In this grand scheme of biblical history, what is a big event that took place?
The Messiah came, the one from the tribe of Judah who would have dominion and everlasting
kingdom and so that coming is not just an important thing, it's a very last days thing,
it's a very eschatological thing.
The first coming of Jesus inaugurated the last days.
It's not a future thing that will take place.
In fact, the New Testament writers speak of the last days as being present, right?
They're here now.
This is not something that will happen in the future.
Does this mean they view themselves at the end of the story?
They think that since Jesus came that all of the new heaven and new earth are already
here?
No, they don't think that.
There's this already not yet tension all throughout the New Testament.
Jesus came, the last days are here and some of that kingdom is really truly here now but
it's not here in its fullness yet.
Some things have come to pass but others are quickly on their way.
So in the synoptic gospels, the last days are referred to the end of days and final
judgment but not yet.
And in the gospels, there's an emphasis on Jesus' presence until that day.
So in Matthew 28, he commissions his disciples and he says, "I'm with you always to the end
of the age."
Age is a pretty last days or end times phrase, end of the age.
Jesus is present with us.
In Mark, Jesus often predicts the end and final judgment and describes it as something
that is coming, something that's near.
He says in Mark 13, 32 through 33, "Concerning that day or hour, no one knows, not even the
angels in heaven nor the Son of Man, but only the Father."
And he warns them, "Be on guard, keep awake, for you do not know when that time will come."
There's no point in being on guard if it's going to be thousands of years later.
So for Jesus, this is an imminent thing and there's an already not yet present even in
that statement.
And in Luke, in all three Synoptic Gospels, he predicts this already not yet coming kingdom.
We saw a little taste of it in the sermon on Sunday in Mark 9, 1 where he says, "Some
of you will not taste death before you see the kingdom of God coming in power."
But he says in Luke, "They will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great
glory.
Now when these things begin to take place, straighten up and raise your heads because
your redemption is drawing near."
Mark 13 says, "One like the Son of Man will come on clouds of glory."
And it's funny because a lot of Bibles will subtitle that, you know, uninspired words
in Scripture.
They'll say, "The second coming of Christ," and I'm not too sure that is the second coming
of Christ.
It is language of the already and not yet of Jesus being present, coming with his kingdom
and power, present in his kingdom, but also not the fullness of that kingdom coming near
yet.
Really complex.
I can't wait for Mark 13 in the fall.
I probably won't be preaching it for that reason.
In John's Gospel, the last days refer to future resurrection with an emphasis on present inauguration
of resurrection, God's temple presence and spirit outpouring.
John 6.40 says, "For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son
and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day."
This resurrection language is near, and in a sense, we are raised with Christ when he
is raised.
That's what we say in baptism, in the likeness of Christ's death, raised to new life.
That's already here, but it's also not here yet.
We will have a future resurrection.
Jesus speaks about an hour that is coming when resurrection takes place.
This is in John 5, 24 to 25, "Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my words and believes
in him who sent me has eternal life.
He does not come to judgment, but has passed from death to life.
Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming and is now here," Jesus says, "when the dead
will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live."
It's very end times language, and Jesus is saying it's here right now.
They're hearing the voice of God, and those who are dead will hear the voice of God and
have life.
Yeah, this is all like present realities and also foreshadowing.
Yeah, that's right, yeah.
In John 2, Jesus foreshadows the destruction of the temple, I think, yeah, he foreshadows
the destruction of the temple and the movement of God's presence from this literal temple
made with human hands to a temple made in God's image.
And John foretells a time when the end time spirit will be given to all of God's people,
John 7, 38 to 39.
The one who believes in me in the scriptures, he said, will have streams of living water
flow from deep within him.
He said this about the spirit.
Those who believe in Jesus were going to receive the spirit, for the spirit had not yet been
given because Jesus had not yet been glorified.
But by the time of John's writing, Jesus had been glorified and the spirit had been poured
out.
So in John, you see this resurrection language, God's presence moving from the temple to the
people of God and spirit outpouring.
And in Acts, that outpouring of the spirit fulfilled Joel's prophecy of the last days,
not Joel Corzine, Joel in the Bible, the last days, bad joke, I'm sorry.
And the church, commissions the church with a mandate of consummating the new creation
with an emphasis again on the already and not yet.
A big, big portion of this is Acts 2, 16 to 21.
So at Pentecost, the spirit comes upon the apostles and everyone there.
And people think that, at least men are drunk because they're speaking in other tongues.
And Peter gets up and gives this awesome sermon concerning these things.
And this is a long, long verse, I want to read it together.
Not all together, but I want to read it for us.
Acts 2, starting in verse 16.
But this is what was uttered through the prophet, Joel, in the last days.
This is what Joel is saying, hundreds or thousands of years earlier.
In the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my spirit on all flesh.
And your sons and your daughters shall prophesy and your young men shall see visions and your
old men shall dream dreams.
Even on my male servants and female servants in those days will I pour out my spirit.
In those days I will pour out my spirit and they shall prophesy.
And I will show wonders in the heavens above and signs on the earth below.
Blood and fire and vapor of smoke, the sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to
blood before the day of the Lord comes.
The great magnificent day.
And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
And what Peter is saying, everything Joel says here has come to pass by the time of
the outpouring of the spirit.
And that's confusing because we see, okay, well, blood and fire and vapor and smoke and
the sun turned to darkness and the moon turned to blood.
What does all that mean?
That's for another lesson.
Even though this is the last lesson.
But all these things will happen before the day of the Lord.
In the Old Testament the day of the Lord is the coming of God's son in the flesh to judge
the world and also give life to those who believe.
And these things happen at Pentecost.
So Acts has a focus in the last days of filling God's people with his spirit and giving them
a mandate to go out to the world, to bring about the new heavens and new earth.
In the Old Testament, the temple of God and its blessing was a central part to the people
of God.
This was very important to the Jews.
It was their literal world, which is why when there's prophecy about the temple being destroyed,
there's cosmic language used.
The sun will be darkened, the moon will not give its light.
Stars fall from heaven.
For the Jewish people this was the temple crumbling because it was their cosmos.
It was their universe.
It was their world.
And so that existed in a physical place was an important thing.
It's a hard thing.
If you're not there you can't feel God's presence.
You can't see God's presence because God's presence dwells there.
The presence of God was lost in Eden and is now only located in the temple.
Thus in the Old Testament, prophecies of a time in the last days when God's people would
fully enjoy God's presence as it was in Eden and much more comes through the outpouring
of the spirit of God's temple presence, moving from a literal temple made with human hands
into a temple made by God himself, which is us, us in the image of God.
In the book of Acts this church has this presence.
This is fuel for the church's mission and mandate to bring about the new heavens and
the new earth where God's people will enjoy his fullness and union with him in a much
greater way when the new heavens and new earth come.
Okay, are we tracking any questions?
I'm saying a lot here.
I know you said wait until another lesson for the end of the black thing, but are you
saying that the transference of God's presence from the temple to in all of believers through
the Holy Spirit is what was being referred to there?
Yes and no.
I think, this is my opinion as an uneducated man.
I think that that cosmic language, stars, moon, sun, you see that often throughout the
Old Testament and often, often, often, often it refers to nations.
And so when Old Testament prophecies talk about these cosmic things, stars and moons
falling, I would argue they never mean that that actually happens.
We're not going to look out of the window one day and see the sun just falling out of
the sky.
It's referring to nations crumbling.
And for the Jews, that was the temple.
And so when Joel was prophesying, especially in light of Christ first coming and outpouring
the spirit, that the moon is blood, the sun is not giving light, all those things, that's
language that this, the age that the Jews were in before Jesus is coming to an end.
The temple is being destroyed and will be destroyed because it hadn't happened yet in
Peter's time.
And that is also inaugurated in the new heavens and the new earth.
Not fully, but it's making the transition from God's temple presence being in the literal
temple to God's temple presence being in God's people.
In Mark 13, when Jesus, he says these things, can someone read Mark 13?
I think Mark 13 is a very important passage.
I think it's 13, might start in 24, 13 verse 24.
I tried not to go here, but Ethan made me.
The coming of the son of man?
Yes.
Go ahead and read it, Dylan.
But in those days after that tribulation, the sun will be darkened and the moon will
not shed its light.
The stars will be falling from the sky and the powers of the heaven will be shaken.
Then they will see the son of man coming in clouds with great power and glory.
He will send out the angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of
the earth to the ends of heaven.
Yeah.
So I would say that that language, that imagery, is not those things actually happening.
Does someone have a version different than the ESV?
What is the CSV?
Yeah.
What does the heading for that say?
There up at the top heading?
Yeah.
Right before verse 24.
The destruction of the temple and the signs of the end of the life.
Interesting.
NIV.
Okay.
Like the Jesus tells about his return.
Right.
It was fascinating to me.
These different English versions, which are always, they're pretty faithful.
That's what the Bible says.
But the headings are kind of split on what this means.
The second coming of Christ, NIV has it down with the destruction of the temple.
And so this language, and not just here, not just in Mark, not just in Matthew 24 or Luke
21, but in the Bible, this cosmic language of these things falling often refers to nations.
And for the people of Israel who Jesus is talking to, he's saying your nation as a people
of God's physical temple, as it sits on the earth, that's coming to an end when the Son
of Man comes in glory with the clouds of heaven, as the NASB says in Daniel 7, up to the ancient
of days.
So it can't be Christ's return because he's going the wrong direction, if it is.
Okay.
Does it adequately explain for now the cosmic language?
Okay.
That's the last day in Acts.
In the Pauline Epistles, Paul speaks about the inaugurated end times with a focus on
new creation, which is inaugurated by Christ.
So Paul affirms that the last days, tribulation, they have begun, but God is victorious in
the end with his end purpose.
A central verse for this is 2 Corinthians 5, 17, therefore, if anyone is in Christ sees
a new creation, the old has passed away and seeing the new has come.
This cannot happen except in the last days.
And so Paul has this focus of we are a new creation and hard times are coming.
He talks often about tribulation, but in the end, God is still victorious, even though
we will go through these hard times.
And finally, in Revelation, I'm happy to hear you guys saying revelation and not revelations.
It's a pet peeve of mine.
The author maintains, John, maintains already not yet pattern of the New Testament with
an emphasis on the soon coming hour of Christ's return.
There's a lot of imagery and prophecy of the new heaven and the earth as well.
At the end of Revelation, Jesus says, this is in verse 22, chapter 22, verse 12, "Behold,
I am coming soon, bringing my recompense with me to repay each for what he has done.
I am the Alpha and the Omega, first and the last, the beginning and the end."
And then later at the end, Revelation 22, verse 20, John says, "He who testifies these
things says, 'Surely I am coming soon.
Amen come, Lord Jesus.'"
Now soon was written down 2000 years ago.
And so there's an already not yet.
Is he coming soon?
I think in the grand scheme of universe history, yeah, he's coming pretty fast.
But he's also with us, right?
This is the same Jesus who said, "I'm with you till the end of the age."
And so in Revelation, we see the last days inaugurated and already not yet distinction.
So to sum up a New Testament biblical theology of eschatology, here is the nerd, G. K. Beale.
Jesus's life, trials, death for sinners, and especially resurrection by the Spirit have
launched the fulfillment of the eschatological, already not yet, new creation reign bestowed
by grace through faith and resulting in a worldwide commission to the faithful to advance
this new creational reign and resulting in judgment for the unbelieving unto the triune
God glory.
So Jesus is coming, his life, his work, his death, his resurrection has inaugurated the
last days.
It's launched us towards the fulfillment of the new heavens and new earth.
And by God's grace, we are commissioned, those who are faithful to God, saved in Christ are
commissioned to advance this new creation.
In all the New Testament adopts and expands on the Old Testament's message of the last
days.
What the Old Testament foresaw as a future hope has begun with Jesus and will culminate
and come to complete fullness in his second coming, his visible bodily personal return
when he comes to judge the living and the dead.
One way to conceptualize this is to understand this through the lens of real world events.
For example, World War II, there was a decisive battle in World War II known as D-Day, right?
Many of us know what D-Day is, it's when the allied forces stormed the beaches of Normandy
and they had a hard fought victory, in many ways this victory was the beginning of the
end of the war.
There was still stuff to fight for, there was still ground to be had, but this was like
a really big battle that kind of decided the end of the war, looking back in retrospect.
And almost 80 years later, we know that the allied forces were victorious at the end of
the Second World War.
And New Testament eschatology is pretty similar.
Christ's first coming is D-Day.
He came, he lived, he taught us about his kingdom, and he gave us a foretaste of what
that kingdom will look like through signs and wonders.
He won the decisive battle of the universe by defeating death through dying on a cross.
It's a big loss to have Christ die on a cross, but also the greatest victory is through him
dying on a cross.
And through that, his first coming, that is the beginning of the end of this old, tired
age and the inauguration of a new, when all creation will celebrate eventually at his
second coming, D-Day, Victory Day, where all things are made whole again.
We have the blessing of looking in scripture and knowing a God who can see the future,
who knows the future, and so we know that Victory Day is already set up for us in the
future, and we know that Christ has come and defeated sin, death, and the devil for us,
and is launching us toward that Victory Day.
But the church still lives with that tension, that tension of already not yet, a war that's
won with a victory not yet fully realized, right?
Christ has defeated death through dying, he's defeated your enemies, but does it always
feel like that?
Does it always feel like you can sin no more for the rest of your life?
And we still struggle with these things.
For example, Matthew 28, he said, I'm sorry, let me back up.
It's already not yet tension, but we know that God's kingdom has come.
It is really and truly factually, literally here.
God's kingdom reign is here now.
Matthew 28, for example, says, "But if it's by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons,"
this is when he's talking about the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit, he's telling them, "If
I cast out demons by the Spirit of God instead of the Spirit of Satan," as you're saying,
"then you know that the kingdom of God has come upon you."
And so unless you're willing to say that Jesus was using Satan's powers to cast out demons,
we're stuck with believing that the kingdom of God has come upon us.
It's already here, there's no debate, God's kingdom, the end, the new heavens and new
earth are and have been breaking into reality, but also not yet, right?
It's not yet fully here.
And I think we can see this already and not yet distinction with some clarity when we
reconsider Bill's five characteristics of the new heavens and new earth.
Again, they're victory over evil, ultimate security against committing sin, protection
from corruption of the body and of creation, and union with God in the eternal state.
Do we live in a world that is victorious over evil?
Yes and no, Christ has come, he's lived, he's died, he's risen again through his death,
burial, resurrection.
We do have a very, very real victory over sin and death and the devil.
Yet you and I know very well, it's not as if sin doesn't plague us today.
It's not as if we don't have to wake up today and fight against temptation and sin with
the power of God's Spirit.
We are still in the presence of evil and we must resist evil daily, but we also are through
Christ victorious over evil.
There's no fear of what evil might do to us in the end because in the end, through Christ
and his Spirit, we win.
Do we have ultimate security against committing sin?
Yes and no, because of his coming, we have ultimate security in the future.
There'll be a reality where we are not present with sin any longer, but it's not a present
reality for us now.
We also have the blessing of having the ability to choose sin or righteousness.
Before Christ, you don't have the ability to choose righteousness.
Everything we do is sin because we're enemies of God.
But now, since Christ has come and saved us, we are much more like Adam and Eve in the
garden where they have the ability to choose righteousness, but also to choose sin.
Do we have protection from the corruption of the body or corruption of creation?
Yes and no, right?
One could argue that human advances have led to us with the ability, if not the willingness,
to preserve human life and create the created world, but no, we don't.
There's still a world we long for when all things will be made new.
Physical creation will be restored.
Do we have union with God?
Yes and no.
Through Jesus' life, death, and burial and resurrection, he has reconciled us to God.
We're no longer separated, kicked out of the garden, but we're invited back into it, into
fellowship with God and union with the Godhead.
But this fellowship is still just something we kind of taste until the fullness comes.
We have union with God right now, but also not yet.
Oh my goodness.
We live in an already not yet world, right?
The realities of new heavens and new earth, they're not here, but they are realities that
are coming.
So in light of all this, how then shall we live?
It's a vital question and a lesson on eschatology.
And many discussions I've been in to listen to eventually devolve into irrelevant facts
about the end times, and they don't actually positively impact how we live right now.
Recall our definition of the beginning of the lesson, at the beginning of the lesson.
Eschatology is a study of what God is doing in and for his creation.
And what God is doing in and for his creation is exciting and beautiful.
It's not a scary thing.
It's not an irrelevant thing.
It's exciting and beautiful, which is why our statement of faith affirms this when it
says that eschatology demands constant expectancy as our blessed hope, and as our blessed hope
motivates a believer to godly living, sacrificial service, and energetic mission.
The end times should energize us, not scare us.
And I often say, I really don't mind what views you take about the end times.
I don't mind if you're amillennial, postmillennial, premillennial, dispensational.
Whatever it is, I don't really mind that much.
They're all great, so long as they propel you on your mission and witness of Jesus.
If you think the tribulation happens before or after the rapture, cool.
What are you doing about that right now?
How are you fulfilling the mandate to bring in the new heavens and the new earth?
Again Bill's definition with an emphasis here on the result of God launching the end times
new creation through Jesus is that we have a commission to advance this new creation
reign.
We, the church, have a mandate to usher in the kingdom of God by the power of the spirit.
When we pray, when we preach, when we testify to God's wondrous works, when we disciple
the nations and do all these things, we are fulfilling the great commission and creation
mandate to be fruitful and multiply and have dominion over the earth.
And when we fulfill that mandate, we usher in the new heaven and the new earth.
But I want to be clear, it's not us doing that.
It's not as if we fail, new heaven and earth don't come.
It is a good and pleasing will of God that this will be accomplished through his people.
God uses the church to bring about the fullness of his mission and purpose of creation, for
creation.
So, in answer to the question how shall we live, I want to leave us with Matthew 28 16
through 20.
Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed
them.
And when they saw him, they worshiped him, this is crazy, they're with Jesus for three
years in ministry, they watch him die, they see his body, they touch his body, and some
doubted.
And Jesus came to them and said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and
of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded
you.
And behold, I am with you always to the end of the age."
Amen.