Imperishable Inheritance

The idea of the sec­ond com­ing has become some­thing of Chris­t­ian folk­lore, because many Chris­tians have their the­ol­ogy of the sec­ond com­ing effected by news­pa­pers, other believ­ers, and seem­ingly every­thing except the Scrip­tures. The New Tes­ta­ment teaches that three main events will hap­pen before the return of Christ to sep­a­rate the wheat from the tares, and they are (1) the Gospel reach­ing all the nations, (2) the final dis­play of God’s faith­ful­ness to eth­nic Israel, and (3) and the rev­e­la­tion of the antichrist.

The Gospel Reach­ing All the Nations

When the dis­ci­ples asked Jesus in the begin­ning of the Olivet Dis­course when we will know that he will return Jesus gives an unex­pected answer. He goes on to say that wars and rumors of wars, famines, and other events will hap­pen; but these events are only the begin­ning of birth pangs. Jesus does answer what event will occur before his return.

“This gospel of the king­dom shall be preached in the whole world as a tes­ti­mony to all the nations, and then the end will come.” (Mat 24:14)

Jesus under­stood that his father’s promise to Abram that he “will make you a great nation, And I will bless you, And make your name great; And so you shall be a bless­ing” (Gen 12:2) was a foun­da­tional event in redemp­tive his­tory. By spread­ing the Abra­hamic bless­ing, which is ulti­mately sote­ri­o­log­i­cal, would bring the great­est glory to God in his cre­ation (Psa 46:10; cf. Mal 1:11; Hab 2:14). It was through Jesus that all who believe “are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus” (Gal 3:26), and that those who are joined to Christ are Abraham’s spir­i­tual descen­dants (Gal 3:29).

The Final Dis­play of Covenant Faithfulness

This point stems out of Paul’s argu­ment in Romans 11. While con­tro­ver­sial, in fact one of the most dis­puted pas­sages in the Bible, I believe Paul finds com­fort in that God will dis­play his faith­ful­ness to Israel (in an eth­nic sense). While I don’t have the time or space to do thor­ough exe­ge­sis of the chap­ter I would ask the reader to do such a study and be con­vinced in their own minds. This con­vic­tions revolves around Romans 11:25–26:

For I do not want you, brethren, to be unin­formed of this mystery–so that you will not be wise in your own estimation–that a par­tial hard­en­ing has hap­pened to Israel until the full­ness of the Gen­tiles has come in; and so all Israel will be saved; just as it is writ­ten, “THE DELIVERER WILL COME FROM ZION, HE WILL REMOVE UNGODLINESS FROM JACOB.” “THIS IS MY COVENANT WITH THEM, WHEN I TAKE AWAY THEIR SINS.” (Rom 11:25–27)

After a dis­course on how Gen­tile believ­ers have been “grated into” the “Israel of God” via their union with Christ, he then tells how God will return to graft in eth­nic Israel’s near the end of time. He says that a “par­tial hard­en­ing has hap­pened to Israel until the full­ness of the Gen­tiles has come in.” I take this to mean that there are basi­cally three redemp­tive epochs in God’s plan of his­tory. There was a time when he was largely focused on his covenant faith­ful­ness to eth­nic Israel, with the advent of Christ he brings in all the nations (see first para­graph above), and then finally he will return to Israel to show that he has not sim­ply cast them off. This last event is when “all Israel will be saved,” and that “from the stand­point of the gospel they are ene­mies for your sake, but from the stand­point of God’s choice they are beloved for the sake of the fathers; for the gifts and the call­ing of God are irrev­o­ca­ble” (vs.11:28–29).

Please under­stand that this does not den­i­grate the idea of a “Spir­i­tual Israel” that is the Church of Jesus Christ which con­tains Jew and Gen­tile, and in this eter­nal per­spec­tive there is no sep­a­ra­tion. But in time and space God does desire to show his covenant faith­ful­ness and mercy, but not through real estate as Dis­pen­sa­tion­al­ists con­tend but through the great­est inher­i­tance which is union with Jesus Christ (1 Pet 1:3–9).

The Rev­e­la­tion of the Man of Lawlessness

I plan on fin­ish­ing an extended writ­ing on who the antichrist is both in title and qual­i­ties, but for now I want to men­tion what I think this event means in terms of the Sec­ond Com­ing of Christ. This is also not meant to deal with how John describes an “antichrist” in his epis­tles (1 Joh 2:18, 2:22, 4:3; 2 Joh 1:7), because those dec­la­ra­tions are more gen­eral then a spe­cific per­son who is the ulti­mate man­i­fes­ta­tion of sin which Paul describes to the Thessalonians.

“Let no one in any way deceive you, for it will not come unless the apos­tasy comes first, and the man of law­less­ness is revealed, the son of destruc­tion, who opposes and exalts him­self above every so-called god or object of wor­ship, so that he takes his seat in the tem­ple of God, dis­play­ing him­self as being God.” (Thess 2:3–4)

Paul’s les­son to the church in Thes­sa­lonica is that there will be a man who is called “the son of destruc­tion” and the “man of law­less­ness” who will seek to reak havoc one final time on God’s peo­ple. Many will fall away to fol­low him, but by doing so they prove that they never really were united to Christ (1 Joh 2:18–20). The mean­ing of “tem­ple” is a con­tro­ver­sial one, and it is a topic that I will address in an upcom­ing post.

Con­clu­sion

These events should hum­ble to real­ize a few things. The Gospel has still not reached all peo­ple groups (ethne/“nations”) in fact almost half of the known peo­ple groups are unreached, and this should tell us that Jesus is not com­ing back tomor­row and that we have a seri­ous respon­si­bil­ity in see­ing God’s glory man­i­fest amongst the nations. That is the impe­tus and urgency of the Great Commission.

Just because God will dis­play his covenant faith­ful­ness to eth­nic Israel does mean the same as the nation Israel as under­stood in our cur­rent geog­ra­phy. Our God is a global God not con­fined to geo­graphic locale, and to believe that God will restore eth­nic Israel in Pales­tine dur­ing the mil­len­nium is a gre­vi­ous error. Finally, we should be on the look­out for deceivers and ulti­mately the man of sin who seeks to destroy God’s people.

We must keep in mind to stay focused on spread­ing the King­dom of God and not fool­ishly spec­u­lat­ing on the time of Jesus’ sec­ond advent, because he will come at a time when we least expect it (Mat 24:50).