Go into any “Christian” bookstore and you will find many books on the “end times” and the “last things”—books on the Rapture, heaven and hell, the Second Coming, the Last Judgment, and Armageddon as well as books with charts predicting the order and nature of what will come in the near future. And the expectation has always been in “the near future.” Some even will predict the precise date of each part of the last things. My grandmother told me that all her life, beginning in childhood, she had heard from preachers about how the world would come to an end “very soon.” She lived until she was ninety years old and died in 1978. And we are still here. From the very beginning of Christianity there have been predictions about the end, all of which have proven to be wrong. But people never learn, and so the peddlers of distortions which pander to the base desires of so many in our world continue to write their books and cash their checks, laughing all the way to the bank.
Christian Fundamentalists and some conservative Evangelicals are obsessed with the topic of the “last things.” Mainline Protestants on the other hand don’t know what to think about or what to do with what the Bible says about heaven, hell, hope, the Parousia (the Greek word interpreted as Second Coming), resurrection, the Last Judgment, etc. So many progressive Christians simply ignore these topics, and when they lose loved ones, they resort to ideas that have more in common with the writings of Dante and Plato than with the early Christian tradition. The result of this theological neglect of eschatology by progressive Christians is that we surrender to Fundamentalists and conservative Christians the task of articulating any understanding, interpretation, and presentation of “the last things.”
This is the first sermon in a series on “the last things.” My intention is twofold: first, I want to uncover what the Bible actually says about this topic. (And what it says has very little in common with what many Christians assume it says). Secondly, I want to ask what these concepts and expectations of the early church might say to us in the twenty-first century. Do they have any relevance and meaning for us, or are they relics of a past that are no longer credible to our post-modern world? We begin with an introduction to the topic of Christian eschatology.
The theological term for what we believe about the end is called “eschatology.” It comes from two Greek words: eschaton and logos. Eschaton refers to “last things” and logos means “word.” The “ology” ending of certain English words finds its origin in the Greek term logos. For example, biology is a word/study of life. Geology is the word/study of the earth. Psychology is the word/ study of the mind. Eschatology means “a word about the last things” or “the study of the last things.”
Many people mean by eschatology what they believe about death, the Last Judgment, heaven, hell, and the Second Coming. But in the Jewish/Christian tradition the meaning is much richer and nuanced. The Bible believes that history is going somewhere and God is guiding that journey. The goal of history is God’s new world of justice, healing, reconciliation, and love. So, when theologians refer to eschatology, they mean everything pertaining to God’s future for the world.
Eschatology refers to God’s purpose for the earth and humankind—indeed, for all creation. We can even see that meaning in the word “end” as we refer to the end of time. End can mean “that’s all, folks!’ In other words, it’s over. For example, the end of a ballgame means the ballgame is over. But end can also mean a goal, as in “means and ends.” For me, this is the more important meaning of the word “eschatology.” If we just focus on ideas/metaphors like heaven, hell, Second Coming, and Last Judgment without being guided by God’s overall purpose, then the ideas we shape around these concepts will probably be wrongheaded and “wrong-hearted.” God’s purpose must be the guiding light as we seek truth about the last things.
But how do we know God’s purpose? Put very simply and foundationally, we as Christians know God’s purpose through Jesus Christ. That’s what makes us Christians. We believe that the greatest revelation of God (at least for us) is the person Jesus of Nazareth, and that includes his life, teachings, deeds, death, and resurrection. From him we see what God wants. In him we can detect what direction God is guiding history. In him we see what the new heaven and earth will be like. Jesus is the key to understanding God, humanity, history, and the Divine purposes and goals for us and this creation. It’s as though a little bit of the future—a little bit of the end time in the sense of what it will be like when God’s will is done universally on earth as it is in heaven—has broken into history with Jesus. In him we have seen God’s future and, by God’s grace, our and creation’s future.
So, what do we see in Jesus of Nazareth? Compassion, hope, forgiveness, mercy, peace, joy, justice, reconciliation, and love that is truly unconditional. All this Jesus summed up in the phrase “Kingdom of God.” The Kingdom of God was his message. “Kingdom” of course is a political term. All those living in the first century were well acquainted with kings and kingdoms. There was Herod Antipas, the ruler of Galilee. There was Tiberius Caesar, the Roman emperor who had titles like “King of Kings” and “Lord of Lords.” When Jesus invited people to enter the Kingdom of God and to have their lives shaped by God’s Kingdom, he was inviting them to ask what the world would be like if God were King and these other guys (Herod and Caesar) were not. From the very beginning, the Christian faith had political implications. It was a radical movement. That’s why Jesus ended up on a cross. He was crucified as a political rebel and as a threat to the Roman and Jewish world.
So, Jesus claimed that God was coming to earth as King and that great coming was beginning with and through him. What does all this mean for our look at eschatology? Whatever we say about heaven, hell, the Second Coming, the Last Judgment, and the new heaven and the new earth must be guided by Jesus’ vision of the Kingdom of God, the ultimate fulfillment of which comes when God’s will is done on earth—and everywhere on earth—as it is in heaven.
New Testament scholar John Dominic Crossan has a wonderful quip that is so helpful in interpreting the Bible and in determining the nature of our faith. “Jesus always trumps the Bible.” For example, there are passages in the Hebrew Scriptures which say that God ordered the slaughter of men, women, children, and even animals as Israel conquered her enemies. But how do we square those passages with Jesus’ teachings? (“Love your enemies/Those who live by the sword will die by the sword/My Kingdom is not of this world. If my Kingdom were of this world, my followers would fight. But my Kingdom is not of this world.”) “Jesus always trumps the Bible” is a wise principle when it comes to interpreting Scripture and determining God’s will. If Jesus is God’s greatest revelation, then it stands to reason that his revelation is greater and truer than all other revelations, whether they come from Moses, Jeremiah, Paul or John. Paul was a great Christian and has much to teach us, but he was not Jesus. He was one early Christian who was doing his best to interpret what the Jesus event meant for his time. He was inspired, intelligent, courageous, and profoundly influential in the development of early and subsequent Christianity—but he was not Jesus. JESUS ALWAYS TRUMPS THE BIBLE.
And in the same way, Jesus always trumps whatever expectations we have of the end. Jesus always trumps our theories of eschatology. If what we say and believe about the end does not correspond to what we know about God through Christ, then our eschatology is wrong—wrongheaded and “wrong-hearted.”
Some years ago there was a film circulating in many American churches which supposedly depicted what the end time would be like according to the Book of Revelation. (Please note that the book is called Revelation, not Revelations. When someone says to me, “Revelations says—,” my thought is, “Excuse me, but you don’t even know the name of the book, so I doubt if you really know what it says or if you understand its genre as apocalyptic literature.”) One scene, based on a total misunderstanding of chapter 19 of Revelation, shows Jesus on a white horse leading the angels of heaven in the slaughtering of countless people. There are rivers of blood—bloodshed like the world has never seen in any war or in all the wars put together. And this film was claiming that when Jesus returned to earth, this is what he was going to do. So how do you square this interpretation with the teachings of Jesus we looked at above, not to mention Jesus’ prayer from the cross, “Father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing”? It’s as though we have a Dr. Jeckle/Mr. Hyde Jesus. If Jesus renounced and rejected violence as a way of life during his first coming on earth, then he would reject violence at his Second Coming (however you understand what Parousia means). Otherwise, the life he lived and his teachings about God’s nature and the kind of life we should try to emulate were not really true. The Jesus at the end of time must be the same as the Jesus of the Gospels—otherwise, the incarnation is a joke, the cross is a farce, and the gospel is sinister, cruel, and misleading.
Now, much misunderstanding about the end of time/eschatology is based on some uninformed interpretations of the Book of Revelation. Revelation is a type of literature called “apocalyptic.” This type of literature was restricted to about 150 years before Jesus to about 200 after Jesus. One characteristic of apocalyptic literature is the use of symbols. And Revelation, of course, is full of symbols. The vast majority of these symbols come from the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament). John takes these symbols and, in many cases, modifies them to fit his message and purpose. But those reading and hearing his message at the end of the first century knew where he got those symbols. How did they know? Because they knew their Bible (which at that time was the Old Testament). They knew it a lot better than we do today. So, John did not have to explain most of his symbols and what they meant. And because they knew John and the Christian faith, they understood his modifications of these symbols. The problem is that most people today are not aware of all this. Most people don’t know that John was writing a pastoral letter to churches that were facing persecution by the Roman Empire. They also don’t realize that all apocalyptic literature was written in times of crisis with the purpose of encouraging people to have faith in God and to be faithful whatever the cost. And most people don’t realize that the basic question Revelation was asking was simply this: “Who is Lord? Caesar or Jesus?
Revelation is not a celestial almanac about the end of time. It is not predicting events going on in our time. It’s not a doomsday book, much less a happy-hunting ground for the lunatic fringe of the church. It was a book written to inspire those struggling little churches in Asia Minor to be faithful to God regardless of the cost and to believe that ultimately all of history is in God’s hands and that God can be trusted to see that history and their destinies to God’s intended end.
I want us to look at three examples which will illuminate what I am trying to say about symbols and the nature of the Book of Revelation. Please read the passages which the following thoughts are meant to interpret.
*Revelation 4:1-6: John’s vision reveals a throne which is a symbol of kingship, power, and judgment. God is the true king and has the ultimate power. God is the final judge (and not Caesar). But how will God use such power? Did you notice what surrounds the throne? A rainbow. And what would that mean to those receiving John’s letter? They would have been reminded of the rainbow after the great flood when God promised Noah, his descendants, and all of creation that God would never destroy the earth. The rainbow was a symbol of mercy, patience, and grace. So, John’s vision was saying, “Yes, God is the ultimate king and judge, and God is committed to setting all wrongs right. There will be justice, but that justice will be exactly what you would expect from a God who is like Jesus. God’s power and judgment will be tempered, guided, and flavored by love, compassion, and mercy.”
*Revelation 5:1-10: Our second example comes from chapter 5. There John is told there is only one worthy to open the scroll and its seven seals. In other words, there is only one who is worthy and can be trusted with the guidance and ultimate goal of history. And that one is the “Lion of Judah.” The lion was the symbol used by the kings of Israel. The lion was known for its power, courage, and fighting ability. Even today we call the lion “the king of the beasts.” The whole world understands a lion. All kings claim to be lions whether they be Herod, Caesar, or even our modern equivalent to kings. They rule and get things done. And woe be to the one who gets in their way. John turns to see the lion who roars and instead he sees a lamb–and not just a lamb, but a lamb standing as though it had been slain.
G. B. Caird, perhaps the greatest New Testament scholar who has ever lived, maintained that this is the key to understanding the whole book of Revelation. What would the lamb symbolize to John and those churches he was writing to in Asia Minor? The lamb was the sacrificial animal in Judaism. The New Testament claims that Jesus is the Lamb of God. Jesus rules not with ruthless force but through sacrificial love. John, like Paul and all of the rest of the New Testament writers, believes that in the cross God has already triumphed over evil. Through love and mercy, through faithfulness and forgiveness, God has already defeated all the demonic forces of this world, including those of Rome.
We are familiar with the expression, “The pen is mightier than the sword.” What does that mean? That truth is stronger than violence. Gandhi and King taught us that. But such truth does not come without a price. In a similar way but on a much more profound level, John is saying with symbolism that love is stronger than hate, peace stronger than violence, forgiveness stronger than revenge, and truth stronger than the lies Rome and all empires (including our own) live by. John is saying in this passage that whenever in his book we are tempted to think “lion,” instead think “lamb.” Every time we are tempted to think hate, violence, revenge, and falsehood as far as Jesus and his followers are concerned, we are instead asked to think love, peace, forgiveness, and truth. Follow that clue and we will not go wrong as we seek to interpret the Book of Revelation.
*Revelation 19:11-16: In these verses we see Jesus on a white horse, and he is clad in a robe dipped in blood–but it’s his own blood and the blood of those early Christian martyrs who were faithful to God even unto death. And from his mouth comes a sharp sword which he will use to defeat his enemies. On the surface it would seem that this passage is saying what that film we earlier alluded to claimed. But what does the sword which comes from Jesus’ mouth symbolize? The Word of God. The Hebrew tradition calls the Word of God a sharp sword. Jesus will defeat his enemies not with a sword that sheds blood—he will defeat his enemies with the Word, the truth and the righteousness of God.
The only weapons Jesus uses in the Book of Revelation and the only weapons he allows his followers to use are these three: sacrificial love symbolized by the cross (Remember Jesus’ call for us to take up our cross and follow him?), the Word of God which is stronger than any force on earth, and one’s faithful testimony to God as one lives true to Christ regardless of the cost. These “weapons of the Spirit” are the only weapons Jesus uses or allows us to use. This passage and so many others like it are not about Jesus coming to slaughter people left and right. It’s an affirmation that God’s way/Jesus’ way/love’s way is the only way to defeat evil, reverse what seems like the hopeless cycle of violence, and heal this earth and humankind.
We have all heard the saying, “I don’t know what the future holds, but I know Who holds the future.” There is so much we don’t know about death, heaven, hell, the Second Coming, the Last Judgment, and the new heaven and the new earth—all of which are after all metaphors for a reality beyond our imagination, much less our understanding. Paul says that we all see through a smudged glass darkly. But in faith we trust this One who holds the future in nail-scarred hands. And that’s why all heaven breaks loose in the Book of Revelation (11:15) announcing, “The kingdoms of this world have become the Kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ, and He shall reign forever.” And that reign will always reflect what we see in Jesus. Ultimately there is nothing to fear, because perfect love casts out fear.
