My fellow liberal Christians are puzzled by one aspect of my approach to theology. I have always had an interest in eschatology and believe that it is a vital and indispensable part of our faith. Liberals on the whole see little need to speculate about “the Last Things.” In fact, I’ve noticed how many of them believe that all that matters and all that is possible is restricted to this life. When we die, only a memory of us remains and even that memory is forgotten within a few generations. “Here and now is what is important. All this ‘pie in the sky’ stuff takes away from the crucial now where we can actually do something to change the world. The waiting and speculating associated with those obsessed with ‘the Last Things’ are simply ways of ‘being so heavenly minded as to be of no earthly good.’”
When people look forward to the end of the world so they can be “beamed up” to heaven and escape the kind of risky and costly love Jesus incarnated and calls us to embrace, the heart of the gospel is destroyed.
These are sentiments I share about a lot of approaches to eschatology. Obsession with such ideas as the Rapture, the Second Coming, the populations of heaven and hell, Armageddon, and the Last Judgment leave little room for faithful discipleship. When people look forward to the end of the world so they can be “beamed up” to heaven and escape the kind of risky and costly love Jesus incarnated and calls us to embrace, the heart of the gospel is destroyed. The Good News is about God coming to earth with liberation, salvation, forgiveness, joy, and unconditional love for “the world” (John 3:16). It’s not about being among the lucky few who will escape some fiery judgment ordained for the rest of humankind and the cosmos itself. The Lord’s Prayer demonstrates the direction of the gospel–from heaven to earth and not from earth to heaven: “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” I have no use for Rapture theology or those who use eschatology to free themselves from the cost of discipleship.
In my blog sermon entitled “Introduction to Eschatology,” I maintained that properly understood, eschatology is all about the fulfillment of God’s purpose for creation and humanity. The “end” of eschatology is not so much about the end of the space-time universe as it is about God’s moving us toward the “end” (as in the “purpose/telos”) of this grand divine experiment called creation. Bringing about such an end requires two types of eschatology. I call these “this-world” eschatology and “transcendent” eschatology. This article will deal with “this-world” eschatology.
Within the Hebrew Scriptures we find the poetry of the Hebrew prophets. Their writings are among the greatest gifts Mother Judaism has given humankind. The prophets were called to “speak truth to power” as they revealed the ways and will of God. The true prophets represented in our Bibles indicted their own people and leaders for the sins of injustice and idolatry. (Examples of this kind of indictment can be found in Amos 2:6-8; 5:18-24; Isaiah 1:1-23; Micah 3:1-8; Jeremiah 5:20-31; Ezekiel 22:6-12. These passages are just a few of hundreds of pronouncements of judgment on the nation Israel by her own prophets. Please take the time to read these passages. You will be amazed at how relevant they are for our time with our “princes.”)
These indictments and judgments may seem harsh to us, but we must remember that for almost the entire period of time covered by the Hebrew Scriptures, the people of Israel had no hope for justice and mercy after death. When you die, that’s it. They may have believed that a shade of a person withered away in Sheol (which was not hell but the place for all the dead). But Sheol was nothing to look forward to. The good, the bad, and the indifferent all shared the same fate. So, any justice and righting of wrongs must happen in this life. None of the prophets are talking about a judgment happening after death and in some other dimension. Whatever judgment and redemption there may be must happen in this life and in the time-space world we now inhabit and not in some post-mortem existence.
We must also remember that the Hebrew Scriptures are more concerned with the community than with individuals. Individuals did suffer when judgment came upon Israel, but the focus was on the failure of the community to do justice, to show compassion, and to be faithful to Yahweh. The Hebrew Scriptures simply did not have our obsession with individuals apart from how those individuals were a part of and fared within a community. Thus, we have an indictment of and a judgment on the whole nation.
Concerns about who goes to heaven and who goes to hell or anything remotely resembling the insane notion of a Rapture or even of a Second Coming and Last Judgment simply were not a part of Israel’s faith.
So, the focus of the Hebrew Scriptures was on this life and this world in history. Concerns about who goes to heaven and who goes to hell or anything remotely resembling the insane notion of a Rapture or even of a Second Coming and Last Judgment simply were not a part of Israel’s faith. Hebrew thinking was very much this-world oriented. However, the people of Israel (at least those faithful to the covenant God made with Israel at Sinai) passionately believed God was involved in this world and in their history. Much of the Hebrew Scriptures makes so much more sense when we understand what they believed and expected. If God was going to act, it would not be in the “sweet by and by”—it must and would be in this world and in history.
And that explains the second part of the message of the prophets which relates to “this-world” eschatology. Most of the prophets (or at least most of the traditions associated with these prophets) have some concept of God redeeming Israel after the people have experienced judgment. Hosea can speak of God wooing Israel back to the wilderness where she began her journey and where she can now enjoy a second honeymoon and start afresh her relationship with Yahweh (Hosea 2:14-23). Isaiah can talk about a time when an ideal king will come to the throne who will obey God and bring peace and justice to the world. This is the passage which says that “the wolf will live with the lamb, and the leopard will lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them . . . for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea (Isaiah 11:1-9). Micah 4:1-4 promises that one day nations “shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks; and nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.” Jeremiah 31:31-34 assures Israel that after the Exile, God will write a new covenant on the hearts of the people. That new covenant will not be on tablets of stones. It will be engraved on the deepest level of humankind’s makeup so that no one will have to teach anyone else the will and ways of God. And Ezekiel 36 24-32 looks to the day when God will perform a heart transplant as a heart of stone is replaced with a heart of flesh and when a divinely given new spirit guides God’s people as they are restored after judgment. (The next chapter, Ezekiel 37, is the “dry bones” section of Ezekiel’s prophecy. Contrary to what some may think, this is not about the resurrection of individuals. This is about the restoration of the Jewish people after the Exile. After fifty years of Exile, I doubt if many people were still alive to remember the time when Judah was an independent nation. The dead bones rising, taking on flesh, and being animated by God’s breath/spirit represent the revival of Israel in time and space after the Exile, not the resurrection of individuals who had died in the past.) These are just a few of the passages that promise a restoration after judgment. Please take the time to read them so you can appreciate their message and focus.
What is important about all these passages is that the prophets expected these blessings of forgiveness and restoration to happen in history and in the near future. They use poetic language and beautiful metaphors to paint word pictures of such a new beginning with Israel’s God. None of these prophets and none of the Jews hearing these promises thought this “new world” would happen in heaven or at the end of time or in some other dimension. They all thought this was going to come true in some future “here and now.” The prophets thought that this “new thing” God would do (Isaiah 43:19) was dependent on God’s active involvement in history. Their emphasis is on the faithfulness and actions of God, but I am confident that they did not ignore the requirement for God’s people to be open to such a “new thing” and to partner with God in the creation of this new beginning. The writings of the post-Exilic prophets demonstrate an understanding that the people’s faithfulness and cooperation were necessary for the continuing blessings of any potential return. Among the pre-Exilic and Exilic prophets the focus was understandably on God (How could the exilic Jews in faraway Babylon on their own possibly start over when they had lost everything that had made them a nation?), but the reality of this promised restoration also depended on Israel’s cooperation and faithfulness.
What we have been looking at is an example of “this-world” eschatology. The focus of the prophets was on what God and God’s people can do in this world, not in some time after the end of the world in some other dimension. For us today I suggest it means that God is working in our history and our world to promote peace, justice, love, forgiveness, compassion, and unconditional love. We are invited to join God in that holy mission. And the strivings of God and of ourselves can make a difference. We can help create a more humane and beautiful world. We can see examples of such a divine-human partnership in both the distant and the recent past. Christians finally saw that slavery was evil, and it was abolished. The Jim Crow tragedy in this country suffered a deadly setback with the Civil Rights movement. Women were finally given the right to vote and have enjoyed some of the opportunities that were once reserved for men. The LGBTQ community has rights and protections that seemed a pipedream just a couple of decades ago. Granted, every one of these examples of progress still needs improvement and enhancement. But my point is that there has been improvement—improvement I never thought I would see in my lifetime. And I have no doubt that this improvement is a result of the efforts of both God and humans. And some of the humans working with God may not even claim to be people of faith. But if God could use Balaam’s ass, God can use anyone who is sensitive to issues involving justice and compassion.
The focus of the prophets was on what God and God’s people can do in this world, not in some time after the end of the world in some other dimension.
This-world eschatology is all about the partnership between God and us doing what we can to bring to fruition God’s purpose and dream for humanity and all creation. It refuses to wait until “the sweet by and by.” It knows that waiting instead of acting is a despicable betrayal of any following of Jesus and any authentic profession of faith. As the Jewish Talmud says, “We are not required to finish the task any more than we are allowed to put it aside.” If our faith in the God of the prophets and in the God Jesus revealed as Abba has any integrity or substance, we will join in what the Jewish faith calls tikkun olam (“mending the world”). Not a one of us will ever see that mending fulfilled in its entirety. The task is immense—it’s in fact infinite. But we have many examples throughout history when people of faith have lit a candle instead of cursing the darkness. And that faithful lighting has made all the difference in the world for some individuals, groups, and cultures. Without embracing this-world eschatology, we have no right to claim to be faithful followers of Jesus who said, “As the Father sent me into the world, so I send you.” But with such an embrace, we can be confident that God will use our efforts to help mend and heal this world God so loves.
