As we continue to explore the often-hidden ideas and assumptions in our hearts, we also examine the assumptions behind complex and sometimes divisive topics, including the End Times. Though there are four major perspectives regarding how this age will wrap up, are they built on certain underlying ideas that we might explore? As we seek to better understand the Forgotten Kingdom, we realize just how intimately connected our End Times views are to the story we believe the Bible is telling and to how we view the Bible itself.
TRANSCRIPTION
Views of the End Times
Just an FYI, you know I love visual aids, and there’s one that goes along with this episode. If you have a moment, you may want to pull it up. You can find it on the Resources Page on the website under the episode title, and we’ll talk about it in a few minutes.
Rapture Practice
When I was a teenager, I came across a book by former NASA engineer and Bible student Edgar Whisenant titled 88 Reasons Why the Rapture Will Be in 1988.
Americans took the book seriously. 4.5 million copies were sold in bookstores, with hundreds of thousands of copies mailed free of charge to churches.[1]
Like many others, I took him seriously. Whisenant explored various biblical prophecies and concluded that the Rapture, the pre-tribulation rescue of believers, was going to happen between September 11th and 13th of that year, 1988. He was quoted as saying, “Only if the Bible is in error am I wrong; and I say that to every preacher in town.”[2]
That weekend, I waited expectantly to be taken up into the air…only to return to high school on Monday the 14th.
Whisenant then corrected a few things and released another book, a few months later, called The Final Shout: Rapture Report 1989. I wasn’t nearly as enthralled that time. He published a few more books with various predictions in 1993 and 1994. He died in 2001, not having been raptured.
At least I hope he wasn’t raptured.
For a while, I attended a youth group that regularly participated in a rapture ritual. During various worship songs, the youth pastor would yell out “Rapture Practice!” The entire group would start jumping up and down, trying to reach as high as possible as we prepared to be “caught up with Jesus in the air.” It was a lot of fun. If I tried it now, I’d probably throw out my back.
The Rapture was just part of the culture of growing up in various churches in the 80’s. It was deeply woven into the fabric of church life and community. We may have debated when it would occur, but no one debated that it would inevitably occur.
It would be a decade or two until I ran across Christians who didn’t hold to the idea of a Rapture, who argued it isn’t actually taught in the Bible. I was stunned. I prayed for them. I assumed they were heretical or maybe not even Christian.
Our perspectives about the End Times matter. They help form us; they form our hearts. They shape our ideas about the Kingdom, and thus our spiritual formation.
One of the primary aspects of any view of the End Times is how we imagine the world moving before the new heaven and new earth. Is it winding up? Is it winding down? Is it moving in cycles? Do we care? Should we care?
A Brief Review
Back in Episode 66, we drew a few initial conclusions:
1. We’re integrated beings living in an integrated world. So, while we might be tempted to add our End Times views to the increasing list of things we shouldn’t talk about, that doesn’t actually promote and cultivate unity. We foster unity when we take the time to listen, explore, and wrestle with God, with others, and even with ourselves. It’s not that we should expect to persuade every person to our position (though we may certainly try), but we should expect to deepen our understanding of the other person’s heart, and thus deepen the relationship.
2. We briefly outlined the four primary views of the End Times: premillennialism, dispensationalism, amillennialism, and postmillennialism. They have some things in common, though they firmly disagree on other things.
3. We recognize that our views on the End Times are not solely a result of our bible study. The hidden ideas in our hearts, our relationships, other deeply formative experiences, and our stories shape how we view and study the Bible.
4. We also recognize that the brilliant scholars who form and communicate these various views are also deeply impacted by assumptions, presuppositions, and their own stories. And that’s what we’re going to focus on today – the often-buried assumptions on which these four End Times views are built.
Can’t We All Just Get Along?
So, let’s briefly mention where all four views agree.
· Jesus will come again for those who love him.
· Jesus calls his followers to be ready all the time
· No one knows the day or the hour of his coming[3]
All four views also agree that Jesus wins and that those who trust in Him will be with Him for eternity.
If you don’t think our End Times views are important to our discussion of the Forgotten Kingdom, three of the four views are named for the concept of the Millennium in Revelation 20, often referred to as the Millennial Kingdom.
If you look at the endnotes on the blogs for this series, you’ll find resources if you want to look at various comparisons between the four. I’ve attempted to include sources representing different views, or ones that I thought did a good job of remaining agnostic.
So, let’s review. I’m going to read some helpful definitions of each view from a group that identifies as Dispensational, though I think they provide a fair and accurate picture of each.
Premillennialism (or Historic Premillennialism)
Premillennialists “believe that Jesus will return before the millennium…When Christ returns, the church age will end, and Jesus will establish his millennial kingdom.
The Christian dead will be raised to life and reign with Christ for a thousand years in a literal kingdom that Jesus establishes on the earth. This kingdom will last for an actual period of a thousand years…
But at the end of the thousand years, the devil will be unbound and released. He will gather those who refused to submit to Jesus and will lead one final rebellion against Christ and Christ’s kingdom. He will fail, and Jesus will finally and ultimately defeat him. Then comes the end.
God will bring about a new heavens and a new earth—a purified and restored creation.”[4]
Premils tend to view Jesus and the New Testament church as the fulfillment of Old Testament Israel. [5]They don’t normally make a distinction between the two.
Dispensationalism
Dispensationalism is a subset of premillennialism and has a few unique features.
“Dispensationalists draw a sharp distinction between Israel and the church—and God’s dealings with each. They believe God has one plan for Israel and another plan for the church. In light of that, one of the major differences in dispensationalism is that it adds a second, secret return of Christ and a secret rapture.
…Afterward there will be a seven-year period of great tribulation, terrible suffering, and hardship. The removal of the church allows God to focus on Israel. During this tribulation, there will be a great conversion of Jewish people to Christ. Then, at the end of seven years, Jesus will visibly return and set up his kingdom…
[Both of these first two views are] … defined by the belief that Jesus returns before the millennium. [Both views] generally hold that history continues on a downward spiral. Suffering generally increases as history progresses until suddenly Christ returns.”[6]
Postmillennialism
“Postmillennialism takes the opposite stance; it maintains that Jesus will return after the millennium. Postmillennialists hold a different understanding of the nature of the millennium. In premillennialism, Christ comes down, establishes his kingdom, and reigns on the earth. In postmillennialism, Christ remains in heaven, exercising his authority on earth through the church.
Whereas premillennialism views the progression of history negatively, postmillennialism views it positively. Through the church’s spreading of the gospel, the millennium will be gradually and progressively established on earth. As Christian influence spreads, so will peace and righteousness…
Toward the end of the millennium, the devil will be released and lead a brief rebellion. Jesus will return to the earth to defeat his enemies, raise the dead to face the final judgment, and then bring about the new heavens and the new earth.”[7]
Postmils view Jesus and the New Testament church as the fulfillment of Old Testament Israel. They don’t make a distinction.
Amillennialism
“Amillennialists agree with postmillennialists that Jesus will return after the millennium, but they do not believe that the millennium is a yet-to-come future event. Instead, the defining characteristic of amillennialism is the belief that the millennium is a present reality.
The millennium is now. It is the church age—the entire period between the departure and return of Jesus.
While premillennialism takes a negative view of the development of history and postmillennialism a positive view, amillennialism takes both. Evil will continue to expand right alongside the spread of the gospel and its positive influences.
Jesus bound and imprisoned Satan with his death on the cross and resurrection. Thus, Satan’s influence has been severely limited, making way for the spread of the gospel to all nations…
Since the millennium is now, when Christ returns, it will be the end. He brings with him the resurrection of the dead, the final judgment, and the recreation of the new heavens and the new earth.[8]
Amils view Jesus and the New Testament church as the fulfillment of Old Testament Israel.
So, while these four agree on some things, they obviously disagree on a lot. They disagree on when Jesus will return in relation to the millennium and how many times. They disagree on whether there is a future plan for the people of Israel or just one plan for everyone who follows Jesus, both Jew and Gentile. And they disagree on where the world is heading during this current age: up, down, or somewhat indifferent.
These differences have a profound impact on our spiritual formation, which is why we need to explore them.
Underneath the Surface
Once again, we assume that very smart, well-meaning scholars are behind each of these positions. We assume none of them are “unbiblical.” We also assume that, because they reach such diverse conclusions, they operate under assumptions and presuppositions about the Bible and the story it tells.
So, what are those underlying assumptions?
The late theologian Dr. Michael Heiser attempted to answer that very question. His Ph.D. was in Hebrew and Semitic Studies, and he worked for Logos Bible Software. While there, he produced a course called “Problems in Bible Interpretation: Why Do Christians Disagree on End Times?”[9]
So, I bought the course, only to discover that a fair portion of the content is available for free on Heiser’s website.[10] Logos Software, you’re very welcome.
Heiser helpfully boiled down the key assumptions underneath the four End Times perspectives and came to this general conclusion:
We come to the Bible with certain interpretive presuppositions that influence how we read it, and those lead us to reach different conclusions about the End Times. And unless we’re aware of those presuppositions, we may not fully realize why we hold the views we do. Meaning, our sometimes hidden or unconscious assumptions about what story the Bible is telling and how it should be interpreted lead to our conscious views of the End Times.
If that sounds a lot like the hidden ideas and assumptions we’ve explored for 67 episodes so far, we’re on the right track.
Heiser lists six or seven questions about the Bible that we often unconsciously answer before we ever open it up. Here are a few:
1. What is the relationship of the nation of Israel to the church? Three of the positions we noted hold that Jesus and the New Testament church are the fulfillment of Old Testament Israel, and one holds that they are separate and distinct today. Which assumption do we make?
2. Should we hold to the concept of a Rapture or not? Are there two future comings of Jesus or just one?
3. Very much related to this season, will there be a literal thousand-year kingdom sometime in our future, or are we somehow in it right now?
4. How do we treat prophecy in the Bible? What system of interpretation do we assume when we read the Scriptures, particularly those considered prophetic? We may not be aware that there are different ways to read the Bible, but there are, and chances are we’re following one, whether we know it or not.
Now, if you buy Heiser’s course and spend the hours watching it, hoping to be told which assumptions are correct, you’ll be sorely disappointed. His point is to get us thinking about the assumptions that drive our views and to acknowledge and explore other sets of assumptions. He wants us to wrestle.
I’m going to share with you some of what Heiser teaches and carry the conversation forward a bit. For the sake of this episode, we’re going to dig into just two of his identified assumptions:
1. What’s the relationship between the nation of Israel and the church?
2. What method or system do we use when we interpret the Bible?
Before we dig in, I’ll once again mention that in order to avoid spending 25 episodes on the End Times, I have to make some gross generalizations about the various views and their underlying ideas. I’m not attempting to extract every nuance from every view. We are attempting to dig into the heart of the disagreements so we can wrestle with them there, rather than argue about certain passages or conclusions that sit above the surface.
The rest of this episode will now follow along with the visual aid you’ve pulled up.
Splitter or Joiner?
When we read and study the Bible, at some point we’re going to be compelled to make a conscious or unconscious decision about the overall Biblical story – what I’ve been calling the “meta-narrative.”
Pretty much everyone agrees that Genesis 1-11 relates the story of all mankind at that point. It starts with Adam and Eve and their family, and as humankind develops, the narrative follows the general affairs of the entire population. When we hit Chapter 11, mankind joins together at Babel to (once again) attempt to declare their divinity, and God mercifully steps in and splits us up for our own benefit and safety.
In Genesis 12, the narrative shifts to just one man, Abraham, and from him comes the people of Israel. Most of the rest of the Old Testament focuses on just this one people group, Israel, and its experiences with God, other nations, and itself.
So far, so good. When we get to the New Testament, however, Dr. Heiser proposes we all make a choice, an assumption, about where the story heads. In Acts 2, a new people group is formed, what we call “the church,” people who choose to follow Jesus and enter His Kingdom. This church was effectively “born” in the Jewish community in the book of Acts. It would be a decade or so later before anyone else became part of this new story.
So, here’s our choice: does the story of the people of Old Testament Israel continue on through the New Testament, through Revelation, and into the present time, separate from this new church, or does the story merge Old Testament Israel and this new church together in the New Testament?
Heiser asks this baseline question: “Are we Splitters or Joiners?” Do we assume the story splits Old Testament Israel and the New Testament church into two, or does it join them into one?
Is this one question, are we Splitters or Joiners, really at the heart, the bedrock, of four pretty different views of the End Times? Well, nothing about the End Times is quite that simple, but yes, what story we assume the Bible is telling has an enormous impact on our End Times perspectives, and so our spiritual formation.
Two People, Two Plans
Those who view the Bible as splitting the story are normally associated with some premillennialists and with Dispensationalism. This is how they self-identify, including what I just read for you: “Dispensationalists draw a sharp distinction between Israel and the church—and God’s dealings with each. They believe God has one plan for Israel and another plan for the church.”
So why do Splitters see two storylines instead of one? Among other things, it concerns the promises God made to the people of Israel in the Old Testament.
Heiser uses the example of God’s promise to Abraham regarding land for the Israelites.
In Genesis 12, God promised several things to Abraham, and in chapter 18, God provided specific details about the land that His people would inherit.
Heiser shares how someone who believes the story of the Bible is about two people and two plans considers these promises to be unconditional but not yet fulfilled, at least not in total. Meaning, God made some promises to Abraham and the Israelites that aren’t yet complete and, because God is faithful, those promises, though not yet fulfilled in our present, must still be fulfilled in our future.
This conclusion has a significant influence on how we read the Bible, including passages considered “prophetic.” If we hold to the idea that a number of Old Testament promises haven’t yet been fulfilled related to Israel, then we’ll generally assume that much of Revelation, parts of Daniel, pieces of the Gospels, and some other passages refer to events that haven’t yet happened. That’s the lens through which we’ll interpret the Bible.
This is what leads to a belief in future events such as the Rapture, a Seven-Year Tribulation, and a literal, earthly 1000-year reign of Jesus. In order for these Old Testament promises to be fulfilled, we make “prophetic space”, as it were, for them to be fulfilled sometime down the road.
Back to the definition of Dispensationalism: “…there will be a seven-year period of great tribulation, terrible suffering, and hardship. The removal of the church (referring to the Rapture) allows God to focus on Israel. During this tribulation, there will be a great conversion of Jewish people to Christ.”
The Seven-Year Tribulation and a literal millennium are necessary for God to fulfill the promises He made to Old Testament Israel that remain unfulfilled. That’s what I mean by “prophetic space.”
One People. One Plan.
Okay, makes sense. So how is it that people join the storylines together? What about these “One People, One Plan” folks? If Splitters assert that there are unconditional Old Testament promises that God made to Israel that remain unfulfilled and must be fulfilled in our future, do Joiners consider God to be unfaithful? Do they just ignore these Old Testament promises?
Heiser goes on to explain that the Joiners don’t agree that these promises were unconditional or that they are unfulfilled. In other words, these promises in question were dependent on Israel’s continued obedience, and they didn’t obey. Or that all of the promises in question were either fulfilled in the Old Testament or in the person of Jesus Himself in the New Testament.
A Joiner isn’t questioning God’s faithfulness to fulfill His promises. She’s disagreeing with the Splitter’s underlying conclusions about the promises in the first place.
Are we going to get into that quagmire? No, we’re not. You can find hundreds of thousands of pages, articles, videos, and sermons making arguments for both sides, and those are things you can wrestle with in your family, church, or Greenhouse. Both sides present substantial Scriptural evidence for their perspectives on these promises. So have fun.
Joiners see the story of the New Testament church merging with that of Old Testament Israel, forming one story. It’s not that Old Testament Israel becomes unimportant or disregarded– it’s that the story is now about one community that includes anyone who chooses to follow Jesus, both Jew and Gentile.
Because they don’t consider most of the promises in question needing to be fulfilled in our future because they’ve already been fulfilled, Joiners don’t interpret the bulk of Revelation, parts of Daniel, pieces of the Gospels, and other passages to be about our future. They have no need to make “prophetic space” for unfulfilled promises because, to them, they’re fulfilled.
So, they don’t hold to a Rapture, a seven-year tribulation, and a literal 1000-year millennium. They don’t tend to see the world as winding down. This is why an Amillennialist may be neutral about the progress of the world, whereas a postmillennialist is optimistic. They don’t interpret the passages about the tribulation to be part of our future.
What might those passages be referring to? There is one historical event that everyone agrees happened, but it plays a much larger role in the Joiner’s storyline than in the Splitter’s.
In AD 70, some 35 or 40 years after Jesus’ Ascension, both Jerusalem and the Second Temple were destroyed at the hands of the Romans after three and a half years of war, bloodshed, terror, and suffering.
Depending on your Christian education, you may have a clear understanding of what that’s all about, or you may have no idea what I’m talking about. Either way, Joiners see that time period playing much more of a cosmic significance than Splitters, and they believe that many of the prophecies Splitters see as in our future were actually fulfilled in our past, in the terrible events around AD 70.
Are we going to get into that? No, we’re not. If you want to go bonkers, just type “AD 70” into your browser and have at it.
The Rapture
Here’s a practical example of how this plays out when we read our Bibles.
One of the most controversial passages regarding the End Times is in 1 Thessalonians 4. I’ll read the passage from Paul’s letter:
But we do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve as do the rest who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus. For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words. [11]
A Splitter will most likely interpret this passage as a separate event from the Second Coming. In other words, to help identify that “prophetic space” in which certain promises will be fulfilled in our future, they “split” Jesus’ coming into two events: the Rapture, followed by what we normally refer to as the Second Coming.[12] So through that lens, a person who holds to a “Two People, Two Plan” view will interpret this passage as describing the rescue of the church prior to or during the Tribulation.
Instead, a Joiner will harmonize this passage with what they view as only one event – the Second Coming. Joiners will point out that the original readers of Paul’s letter would have been familiar with the custom of a people rushing out to meet their conquering king, preparing to usher him back into their city. It’s sort of the image of the Triumphal Entry on Palm Sunday. So, to them, this passage doesn’t refer to us being caught up and taken away or rescued – it refers to us meeting our King and welcoming Him back down to the planet He’s conquered, at the Second Coming.[13] Joiners don’t hold to two future appearances of Jesus, just one.
These are obviously two radically different interpretations of the same passage. But at least we now understand why they’re different – they’re different based on the underlying assumptions about the meta-narrative. Is the story about Two People and Two Plans, or One People and One Plan?
Interpretive Methods
It becomes fairly obvious that Splitters and Joiners are reading the same passages in the Bible through different lenses and different methods of interpretation.
Dr. Heiser chats about that, so we’ll touch on it as we close. The fancy name for the study and use of these interpretation methods is “hermeneutics.”
Splitters tend to approach the Bible using a method called “The grammatical-historical interpretation,” also known as the “Literal interpretation.”[14]
Now the word “literal” causes all sorts of headaches. What do we mean by taking a passage “literally?” And literal to whom? To a modern reader in the 21st century or to a Jewish family in 300 BC?
Here’s the good news: no one thinks we should “literally” pluck out our eyeballs or cut off our hands if we sin. No one thinks Jesus, the “Lamb of God,” is actually a sheep.
One dispensational scholar clarifies, “… [The method] uses ‘literal interpretation’ for the original intent of the author…”[15]
In other words, this method of interpretation attempts to determine what the author’s original purpose was in its original context.
Cool. Here’s the problem – other methods claim the same thing.[16] They’re all attempting to interpret the Bible according to what they believe the author’s original intent was. That’s sort of the point.
Much of the difference actually involves how each system views the relationship between the Old and New Testaments.
Splitters will normally interpret each Testament equally and at face value. So those Old Testament promises are to be taken literally and must be fulfilled literally.
Joiners view the relationship between the Testaments differently. They hold that the New Testament does amplify, interpret, and clarify the Old Testament, primarily because of Jesus. Both Testaments are equally important, though the New Testament is the lens through which the Old Testament may be understood.[17]
Those are actually pretty different perspectives, and there’s been an ongoing scholarly war between the two camps for decades, if not longer.
The Splitters tend to charge the Joiners with using too much allegory, “spiritualizing the text,” and making the Bible mean whatever they want it to mean. The Joiners tend to charge the Splitters with being wooden, failing to properly recognize Jesus as the center of the story, and creating a prophetic system that makes little sense.
Are we going to get into it? No, we aren’t.
Bedrock Ideas
There’s much more to it, but, in general, these are the two fundamental assumptions on which the two sides disagree and which lead to the various End Times views.
1. What is the meta-narrative? Does the Bible tell the story of two peoples and two plans, or one people and one plan?
2. By what method do we interpret the Bible? Does the New Testament fulfill, clarify, transform, and amplify the Old Testament or not?
This does beg the question: Which came first? The chicken or the egg? Does our assumption about the storyline of the Bible impact the method we use to read it, or does the method we use to read it impact the storyline we think the Bible is telling?
I have no idea. For those of us who sit at the bottom of the food chain of how these ideas flow, it’s probably a mixture of both.
So, these are the two questions we might consider and try to answer when we sit down to read and study our Bibles, particularly when it comes to the End Times. What’s the storyline, and what is the relationship between the Old and New Testaments?
And when we’re in conversation with someone who holds to a different End Times view than we do, we might start the conversation exploring these two assumptions instead of trying to argue about the mark of the beast, the Rapture, or the Anti-Christ.
So, are we Splitters or Joiners? Makes a huge difference in how we read the Bible, especially those pesky prophetic passages. And it makes an enormous difference in our spiritual formation.
Fun stuff. Perhaps there is at least one thing we can conclude from all of this. Depending on who you read, there are at least 300 prophecies in the Old Testament concerning Jesus,[18] and several of them predict details about His birth.
But it wasn’t like there was a welcoming party sitting around waiting for Mary and Joseph when they journeyed into Bethlehem. Apparently, no one had figured out what was happening. If they had, I suppose Mary and Joseph would have actually been given a room in the inn.
So, if the wise men couldn’t figure it out without a whole lot of astronomical help the first time around, maybe none of us are supposed to figure it out the second time around.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_C._Whisenant
[2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_C._Whisenant#:~:text=Whisenant%20was%20quoted%20as%20saying,life%20on%20Rosh%20Hashana%2088.%22
[3] https://www.christianbook.com/four-views-the-end-times-pamphlet/9781596360891/pd/360895
[4] https://www.exploregod.com/articles/biblical-prophecy-four-views-of-the-end-times
[5] https://www.blueletterbible.org/faq/mill.cfm
[6] https://www.exploregod.com/articles/biblical-prophecy-four-views-of-the-end-times
[7] https://www.exploregod.com/articles/biblical-prophecy-four-views-of-the-end-times
[8] https://www.exploregod.com/articles/biblical-prophecy-four-views-of-the-end-times
[9] https://www.logos.com/product/120245/mobile-ed-bi171-problems-in-bible-interpretation-why-do-christians-disagree-about-end-times
[10] https://drmsh.com/eschatology-discussion/
[11] New American Standard Bible: 1995 update (1 Th 4:13–18). (1995). The Lockman Foundation.
[12] https://davidjeremiah.blog/what-is-the-rapture/
[13] https://ntwrightpage.com/2016/07/12/farewell-to-the-rapture/
[14] Vlach, M., (2023) Dispensational Hermeneutics (p. 23). Theological Studies Press.
[15] Vlach, M., (2023) Dispensational Hermeneutics (p. 23). Theological Studies Press.
[16] https://tabletalkmagazine.com/article/2020/10/the-covenantal-hermeneutic/
[17] https://www.kimriddlebarger.com/reply-to-john-macarthur
[18] https://www.gotquestions.org/prophecies-of-Jesus.html
