On the Unity and Diversity of the Biblical Witness Concerning Hell and Final Judgment

Author’s note: One of the last major theological shifts I made before my deconversion was from annihilationism (or conditional immortality) to universalism (or ultimate reconciliation). The following paragraphs were originally intended to be the first chapter of a book I was writing on the biblical merits of universalism. I abandoned that project when I left the faith in 2015, and if I were to write on the subject today it would inevitably look very different, but I still think there is some practical value here for Christians who find themselves struggling with this issue like I was. While I’m no longer a Christian, I still think this is one of the most promising ways of approaching the question of hell and final judgment from within the Christian faith.

“There can be no doubt that the desire for a neat and simple argument in support of a truth may dispose even able men to offer some little violence to evidence that points in the direction of complexity. What we consider neatness and simplicity is not always a characteristic of Divine working, or Divine teaching. A passion for simplicity of statement has often blinded men to facts that indicated more complexity than might at first have been supposed.” — Edward White¹

The Basic Task

Introductions to studying the Bible usually begin with a description of the basic task of the interpreter. This basic task is called exegesis, which means “to lead out of”. As Gordon Fee and Douglas Stuart define it in their classic handbook, How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth, exegesis is “the attempt to hear the Word as the original recipients were to have heard it, to find out what was the original intent of the words of the Bible.”² Others are more cautious in their definition, preferring to speak less in terms of uncovering an author’s “original intent” (which can be difficult to ascertain) and more in terms of achieving “a credible and coherent understanding of the text on its own terms and in its own context.”³ However we define it, following proper exegetical practices does not eliminate ambiguity or guarantee that our interpretations will be correct. It does not end the conversation between the text and its readers. Rather it allows that conversation to take place. 

Being a responsible exegete is like being a good listener. We all know what it feels like to talk to someone who doesn’t have the patience or empathy to hear us out because they think they already know what we’re going to say before we say it. If we’re honest, we’ve probably been that person on more than one occasion. It takes tremendous effort to step outside of ourselves, to lay down our own expectations and preconceived ideas, and to just listen to someone on their own terms. But that’s what we do when we love someone. In the same way, when we come to the sacred text of Scripture, our first priority should not be to get something for ourselves or to find confirmation for what we think it should say, but to simply listen, without pretense, to what the text says.⁴ Biblical exegesis is an act of empathy: it requires us to step outside of ourselves, outside of our own time and space and likes and dislikes, and into the time and space of others. This is hard to do, not because it requires a special kind of intelligence but because it requires a special kind of love, the kind of love that drives a man to lay down his life for his friends.

Of course, everyone recognizes the necessity of following proper exegetical practices in theory. Evangelicals are united in their allegiance to the Bible as the supreme authority in all matters of faith and practice, an allegiance which should entail a very practical commitment to follow the text wherever it leads. The unfortunate reality, however, is that it is often those who have the highest view of biblical authority who are most prone to do violence to the very texts they seek to honor. Like the person who can’t listen because they think they already know what is going to be said, evangelical hermeneutics often entail an auxiliary impulse that sits in tension with, if not in direct contradiction to, the basic task of exegesis. This impulse stems from the widespread evangelical commitment to what has been called “biblicism”.

As Old Testament scholar Peter Enns defines it, biblicism “is the tendency to appeal to individual biblical verses, or collections of (apparently) uniform verses from various parts of the Bible, to give the appearance of clear, authoritative, and final resolutions to what are in fact complex interpretive and theological issues generated by the fact that we have a complex and diverse Bible.”⁵ One of biblicism’s central features is the belief that the Bible must be internally consistent on every subject of which it speaks, every passage fitting together like the individual pieces of a giant jigsaw puzzle. For something to be “biblical” on this view means there is a single, monolithic thread of teaching that stretches from Genesis to Revelation, and our task as interpreters is to simply locate that thread and call it what it is. The result is an essentially deductive approach to the Bible. If any passage seems to contradict what we believe to be the unified voice of Scripture, we are bound by our prior commitment to explain the apparent contradiction away and harmonize that passage with all the others. “God said it, we believe it, that settles it.”

While the face-value simplicity of this approach is undeniably appealing, in practice it is simply unsustainable. Especially when it comes to difficult questions like hell, questions which require extensive investigation of a broad range of texts from multiple sources in both the Old and New Testaments, biblicists are fundamentally inhibited from letting the biblical authors speak for themselves. The biblicist version of the Bible is a lot like Contemporary Christian Music: easily identifiable melodies, without tensions or discord, filled with clean harmonies. But the Bible we actually have is less like CCM and more like free jazz. It’s a collective improvisation filled with the wailing, clanging, piercing notes of individual instruments playing against the elastic rhythm and timbre of the group. The stubborn fact is that there are many different voices in Scripture, and while there is an overarching melody which gives clarity and cohesion to the whole, the closer we listen the more discord we will hear.     

To cite a rather trivial example of this discord, consider the following two passages. Matthew 27:3-10 and Acts 1:16-19 present two different accounts of Judas’ death. In Matthew’s account, Judas returns the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests, goes and hangs himself, and then the chief priests buy a field with the money to use as a cemetery. In this account, the fact that the field was paid for with blood money and turned into a cemetery explains why it later became known as the “field of blood”. In Luke’s account, however, Judas himself uses the silver to buy a field, and then he falls head first in that field and bursts open so that his entrails spill out. In this account, the fact that Judas died in the same field that he purchased with blood money explains why it later became known as the “field of blood,” not because the chief priests purchased the field and used it for a cemetery. This is just one out of literally hundreds of examples where the biblical authors do not speak with one voice.⁶

So the question presses: How are we supposed to be faithful to the biblical witness concerning the death of Judas when Matthew and Luke give two very different accounts of how that event took place? Of course, no two accounts of anything would be completely identical. But if we are honest, these texts do seem to represent two different interpretations of how a particular set of closely related events happened. In order for us to really provide a credible solution here, we must provide an explanation that has a ring of historical plausibility to it. From what I have seen, however, every attempt to harmonize the two passages is far too convoluted to be taken seriously.⁷ In this case, a prior commitment to finding a unified voice behind Matthew 27:3-10 and Acts 1:16-19 requires us to bend one of the evangelists’ accounts around the other, thereby failing to listen to them each on their own terms. And while this might not have any major implications for the question of Judas’ death, it certainly would for many other questions, not least the questions of hell and final punishment.

The Harmonization of Hell

Nowhere is the effect of biblicism more strongly felt than in the current debate on the nature of hell. While evangelicals pride themselves on taking Scripture seriously, the strong tendency towards harmonization in evangelical hermeneutics often drives proponents of all three views of hell to do violence to the texts that don’t fit with their conclusions. And since the vast majority of recent books on the subject are written by and for evangelicals—mainline, Catholic, and Orthodox Christians seem much less interested in nailing down dogma about the afterlife—most of the books currently in print share this tendency.⁸ Here we will briefly consider two of the most influential evangelical authors of the past few decades, Robert A. Peterson and William Edward Fudge, to see how the impulse towards harmonization impacts their respective treatments of the biblical data, but the same lessons could be drawn from any number of evangelical authors.  

Dr. Robert A. Peterson is Professor of systematic theology at Covenant Theological seminary in St. Louis, Missouri. He is also one of the most prolific defenders of the traditionalist view of hell as eternal conscious torment, being the author, coauthor, editor, or contributor to at least half a dozen different books and academic articles on the subject.⁹ His most complete statement is the 1995 book Hell On Trial: The Case for Eternal Punishment, which John MacArthur praises for “letting the Bible speak plainly for itself”.¹⁰ How does Peterson let the Bible speak for itself? By treating it like a giant jigsaw puzzle: 

I am suggesting that the Bible is like a jigsaw puzzle that provides five thousand pieces along with the assurance that these pieces all belong to the same puzzle, even though … pieces … are missing. Most of the pieces that are provided, the instructions insist, fit together rather nicely … the assurance that all of the pieces do belong to one puzzle is helpful, for that makes it possible to develop the systematic theology, even though the systematic theology is not going to be completed until we receive more pieces from the One who made it.¹¹

After providing this quote from D. A. Carson at the start of Hell On Trial’s penultimate chapter, Peterson goes on to explain its value: “The key truth that the puzzle analogy teaches is that the puzzle pieces we have do fit together. Because the Bible is given by God, its doctrines cohere.”¹² To be fair, Peterson is speaking in this context of biblical doctrines cohering, not necessarily individual texts. But the way he applies the same principle elsewhere shows how far he is willing to take it. Note the way he deals with the universalist-sounding language of 1 Corinthians 15:28, which speaks of God ultimately being “all in all”:

In fairness I admit that this and similar passages such as Ephesians 1:10 and Philippians 2:9-11, if taken by themselves, are compatible with universalism. It is plain, however, from other verses in the biblical books in which these verses appear, that they are not intended to teach that all will be saved. Universalists argue their case from only a portion of the biblical data. But this line of reasoning must be rejected as unsound theological methodology. To know the Bible’s teaching we must take the whole Bible into account.¹³ 

This is the extent of Peterson’s interaction with these texts. He attempts no exegesis of the passages themselves; he simply rejects the universalist reading on the grounds that it picks and chooses its evidence. Of course Peterson is right to say that individual texts must be understood within the larger contexts of the books in which they appear. But notice he goes further than this. In order to properly understand these three texts, Peterson insists that “we must take the whole Bible into account”—a noble sentiment, but one that in this case amounts to nothing more than a diversion, since the appeal to “the whole Bible” is made in lieu of exegeting these biblical texts. Using the same strategy, a universalist could point out that traditionalists like Peterson argue their case from only a portion of the biblical data, and then proceed to subsume those texts within the controlling framework of their own preferred passages. Clearly, this is a dead-end street.  

Peterson takes the same approach when faced with passages commonly used in support of annihilationism:

Considered in isolation, these verses might seem, at first glance, to teach conditionalism. But they should not be considered in isolation from the rest of the Bible’s teaching. Verses such as Matthew 25:41, 46; Mark 9:42-48; Revelation 14:9-10; 20:10, 14-15 have led church leaders throughout the centuries to believe, teach, and confess the never-ending suffering of the lost.¹⁴

One of the annihilationist-sounding texts under consideration here is 2 Peter 2, a passage which compares the final judgment of the wicked to the “extinction” of Sodom and Gomorrah (2 Pet. 2:6). Again, Peterson attempts no exegesis of the passage on its own terms; rather, he appeals to a handful of other passages, all in different books by different authors, and argues that 2 Peter 2 should be made to agree with the traditionalist understanding of those verses. Because the Bible is a puzzle, all the pieces must fit together; and because most theologians throughout church history have assembled the puzzle in a certain way, giving preference to some pieces more than others, Peterson thinks we should do likewise.            

A similar strategy is taken by the annihilationist author Edward William Fudge in his 1982 work, The Fire That Consumes: A Biblical and Historical Study of the Doctrine of Final Punishment, arguably the most important book on hell of this generation. If evangelicals are more open to questioning traditionalism than they were thirty years ago, it is thanks largely to the detailed and thorough contribution of The Fire That Consumes. Unfortunately, Fudge’s work is plagued by the same problem as Peterson’s. While his exegetical instincts are often on target, Fudge’s prior commitment to a particular view of the Bible sometimes inhibits him, in principle, from following the evidence wherever it leads. This can be seen most clearly by comparing Fudge’s treatment of canonical texts with his treatment of non-canonical texts.

When dealing with non-canonical texts, Fudge employs a consistently grammatical-historical hermeneutic. This means that he is free to acknowledge the different perspectives of individual writers.¹⁵ Thus, when he arrives at Judith 16:17, a passage which employs the imagery of Isaiah 66:24 to refer to eternal conscious torment, Fudge is free to point out the discontinuity between the two authors: “Judith is not drawing on Isaiah’s conviction; she is denying it. She is not following Isaiah. She is reversing Isaiah.”¹⁶

When it comes to canonical texts, however, Fudge is torn between two poles. On the one hand, he clearly wishes to respect the dignity of individual biblical authors. He speaks repeatedly, for example, of the importance of being sensitive to possible differences of meaning between an Old Testament image and the use of that same image by a New Testament writer.¹⁷ On the other hand, Fudge is bound by his prior commitment to a Bible that is “without error in anything that it teaches”.¹⁸ So when he is actually faced with the possibility of discord between an Old Testament image and its use in the New Testament, his final recourse is to appeal to the principle of harmonization:  

If we are willing to let the Bible define its own terms, the metaphor of unquenchable fire is easily recognized, immediately understood, and consistently used. No evangelical can logically refuse to allow this of Scripture, for, as J. I. Packer points out, the presupposition that Scripture possesses an “inner coherence and consistency and power to elucidate its own teaching from within itself” is “a controlling principle in all interpretation.”¹⁹ 

How strange it is, one might wonder, that this “controlling principle” is only ever applied to texts that belong in the Protestant canon. How different from the exegetical method Fudge advocates elsewhere. Is it too much to suppose that, if Judith were included in Fudge’s canon, he would find a way to harmonize it with Isaiah 66 instead of denouncing it as a denial and reversal of Isaiah’s meaning? His treatment of Revelation suggests so. When he gets to Revelation 14:9-11, a passage which by all appearances does the same sort of thing with Isaiah 34 that Judith does with Isaiah 66, and with much more colorful language than Judith, Fudge bends over backwards trying to harmonize that text with his annihilationist reading of the rest of the Protestant canon:

Although simplistic, it is almost fair to say that this whole debate rests finally on one question: should we interpret dozens of straightforward texts throughout the Bible to match the literal sense of two symbolic texts in the Apocalypse, or ought we to interpret the two apocalyptic texts symbolically to conform to the many others?²⁰

Conform—that is the operative word here, and the Achilles heal of Fudge’s whole case for annihilationism. Whereas he is free to acknowledge the differences between Judith and Isaiah, Fudge is obligated to harmonize Revelation with his annihilationist reading of the rest of the Bible, and feels justified in doing so, because (a) there can’t be any contradictions in Scripture, and (b) so many other texts clearly refer to the annihilation of the wicked.²¹ The majority has spoken, and Revelation must be made to agree with it. Judith is clearly reading extraneous ideas back into Scripture, but Revelation must be made to agree with Scripture. 

Each in their own way, Peterson and Fudge both appeal to the Reformation principle of interpreting Scripture by Scripture. For the Reformers, this principle was a way of avoiding the anachronistic misreadings of the medieval Catholic Church, going back to the biblical text in its own historical context, and affirming the authority of Scripture above tradition. But as Craig C. Hill of Duke University points out, this principle “all too easily becomes license for harmonizing according to one’s prejudices.”²² Peterson favors the weight of tradition, while Fudge favors what he sees as the majority of the biblical data, but both authors build their case on the same faulty premise of harmonization, and both are thereby forced to do violence to the texts that don’t fit with their presuppositions. This is not what it means to be biblical.   

Being biblical, if it means anything at all, must mean giving the biblical authors the basic dignity of expressing their own thoughts, even if those thoughts are sometimes different than those of other biblical authors. If we are bound by some prior commitment to make two authors agree with one another, then we may boast of having a “high” view of Scripture—so long as “Scripture” remains a cipher for our own thoughts and only occasionally intersects with the intention of the biblical authors themselves—but we cannot say that we have been faithful to the sacred text of Scripture.²³ If, however, we approach the Bible inductively, as the work of real human beings inspired by the Spirit for a specific purpose at a specific time and place, then we are free to acknowledge both the unity and the diversity, both the consistency and the inconsistency, of the biblical testimony concerning this or any other subject. Discord should not be presupposed, but neither should harmony.

Three Strands of Data 

So what happens when we, to the best of our ability, allow the biblical authors to speak for themselves on the subject of hell? Is there any harmony to be found between the various voices, or is there only discord? 

The subject of hell is a subset of eschatology, that branch of theology which concerns itself with the “last things”. Broadly speaking, eschatology is about the fulfillment of God’s purposes for human history. There are many different ways of understanding the fulfillment of God’s plan, some more credible than others, but every eschatology has at least one thing in common. In his phenomenal book, In God’s Time: The Bible and the Future, Craig C. Hill offers the following summary of every eschatology, biblical or otherwise: 

At heart, all eschatologies are responses if not quite answers to the problem of evil. Are injustice, suffering, and death the final realities in our world? Is human history, both individual and corporate, purposeful? Is all this talk about the goodness, love, and justice of God just pie in the sky? Eschatologies differ in how they conceptualize God’s triumph, but they are essentially alike in asserting God’s victory as the supreme reality against which all seemingly contrary realities are to be judged.²⁴  

What is true of eschatology generally is true of hell specifically. The unified voice behind every word of judgment in Scripture is that in the end God’s love and justice will prevail. Sin will not go unchecked, the wicked will not triumph, and the righteous will not be forgotten. God’s plan for his creation will stand. But what exactly is that plan? And how does the final judgment contribute toward its fulfillment? And perhaps most importantly, how are the core monotheistic convictions concerning God’s love and justice upheld within that picture? 

While the central assertion of God’s victory is consistent throughout the Bible, the unique contexts within which the different authors reflected on these questions generated at least three different ways of envisioning the final judgment. 

The first way, which is by far the most common, is the language of annihilation: death, destruction, perishing, being consumed, vanishing like smoke, and so on (e.g., Ps. 1:4, 6; 34:16; 37:2, 9-10, 38; 58:7-8; Prov. 24:20; Isa. 1:28, 30-31; 5:24; Obed. 16; Nah. 1:10; Mal. 4:1; Matt. 10:28). If there was such a thing as a unified voice in the Bible’s portrayal of the fate of the wicked, annihilationism would have a powerful case for calling itself the most biblical view.²⁵ As mentioned above, the author of 2 Peter gives clear expression to this view when he compares the fate of the wicked to that of Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis 19: 

By turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes he condemned them to extinction, making them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly … But these, like irrational animals, creatures of instinct, born to be caught and destroyed … will also be destroyed in their destruction (2 Pet. 2:6, 12). 

Scholars agree that 2 Peter is based largely on Jude.²⁶ The language of 2 Peter 2:4-17 in particular follows closely the language of Jude 6-13. But whereas Jude speaks repeatedly of God’s punishment being eternal, the author of 2 Peter consistently omits such language and replaces it instead with the language of “extinction” (2 Pet. 2:4, 6, 17; cf. Jude 6, 7, 13).²⁷ According to Fudge, the language of this passage “is so clear and forceful that traditionalist authors are simply at a loss to comment on it at all.”²⁸  

And yet there are several passages which seem to express something like the traditional view of eternal torment, most notably Daniel 12:2, Matthew 25:41-46, and Revelation 14:9-11. Take the last of these as an example: 

If anyone worships the beast and its image and receives a mark on his forehead or on his hand … he will be tormented with fire and sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever, and they have no rest, day or night (Rev. 14:9-11).

Within the developing narrative of Revelation, this scene is presented as the direct antithesis of the heavenly throne room vision in chapter 4, where the attendants of the sea of glass continuously offer their praise before God.²⁹ The point of the contrast is clear: “While Rev 4:8 describes the unceasing liturgy of praise offered to God by the four heavenly cherubim, 14:11 emphasizes the unremitting torment of those who worship the beast.”³⁰ Annihilationists are right to caution us against directly equating the imagery of John’s vision with its intended referent; indeed, I will argue for a slightly nuanced reading of this passage in chapter 6. But it seems hard to believe that anyone could read “they will have no rest, day or night” as referring to the destruction of the wicked unless the maintenance of their particular theological system required them to.        

Besides annihilationist and eternal torment texts, however, there are quite a few passages which seem to support the wider hope of ultimate reconciliation, such as Romans 5:18, Romans 11:32-36, 1 Corinthians 15:22, and Philippians 2:5-11. Some of the imagery in Revelation may also point in this direction, most notably Revelation 21:24-25, which pictures the “kings of the earth” (the same characters who were previously slaughtered by the rider on the white horse) bringing their tribute through the perpetually open gates of the holy city.³¹ But perhaps the clearest expression of this wider hope appears in the famous Christ Hymn of Colossians 1: 

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created … All things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together … For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross (Col. 1:15-20). 

As a devout Jew, Paul grew up hearing a particular story about God and the world, a story that stretched from the creation of all things in Genesis to the various promises of restoration in the prophets. Looking at all the evil in the world, many Jews in Paul’s day were pessimistic about the scope of the coming restoration. The tragic refrain of 4 Ezra is typical of the times: “I said before, and I say now, and will say it again: there are more who perish than those who will be saved, as a wave is greater than a drop of water” (4 Ezra 9:14; cf. 8:1-3; 10:10). This is what makes passages like Colossians 1:15-20 so remarkable. Paul is retelling the classic Jewish story, the same story the author of 4 Ezra was telling at around the same time. But unlike 4 Ezra, Paul tells the story from the new vantage point of Jesus’ death and resurrection, and the ultimate conclusion of this new vantage point is that the scope of the promised restoration now stretches as far as creation itself. Just as Christ is the agent through whom “all things” were created (v. 16), and in whom “all things” are sustained (v. 17), so too he is the agent through whom the same “all things” are reconciled (v. 20).³² “This is a conception of the destiny of the universe,” says C. H. Dodd, which “goes beyond anything in Jewish apocalyptic.”³³

We will explore some of these passages in more depth later, but the main point at present is this: Ultimately, every attempt to find a unified voice for “what the Bible says about hell” is inevitably selective, requiring the interpreter to bend some texts into the shape of others. So it won’t work to simply point to this or that text and say “Case closed! The Bible clearly supports my view.” There are always other texts to be found, and no single view has the monopoly on biblical support. To claim such a monopoly is to purchase the appearance of harmony at the cost of exegetical integrity.

A Better Way: The In Christ Project

So what do we do? How do we decide between the various strands of data? Is there any way to move past the recognition of discord to something that might meaningfully be called “the biblical view of hell”? 

I believe there is. Given the fact that these three different types of passages do not lend themselves to an easy harmonization, the relevant question is not which type of language represents the greatest percentage of the data, or which one is the hardest to explain away, but rather which one reflects a deeper insight into God’s redemptive plan according to the overall direction of the biblical narrative.³⁴ This approach allows us to acknowledge the areas of discord within the Bible while still making an informed judgment on which traditions represent a more “biblical” or “Christian” worldview. 

In order to illustrate how this approach works, let’s use a collection of non-sacred texts as a case study.³⁵ I have on my bookshelf an anthology of writings from the Enlightenment.³⁶ In this anthology there is a section on race. In that section on race there is a selection from David Hume which speaks approvingly of the fact that “there are negro slaves dispersed all over Europe”.³⁷ This statement is then contradicted by a selection from Thomas Paine just a few pages later which rebukes the slave trade as the “height of outrage against Humanity and Justice”.³⁸ 

Now, obviously Hume and Paine both reflect the zeitgeist of the Enlightenment to one degree or another, or else they wouldn’t be included in the “canon” of this anthology; and yet obviously the two men had very different perspectives on the issues of race and slavery, and there is nothing to be gained by trying to harmonize them. Does that mean, therefore, that we shouldn’t pick one over the other, that both statements are equally in tune with the intellectual currents of their age? I don’t think so. Notice that Paine capitalizes the words “Humanity” and “Justice”. A few paragraphs earlier he claims that the slave trade is “contrary to the light of nature, to every principle of Justice and Humanity, and even good policy, by a succession of eminent men, and several late publications.”³⁹ Throughout his article, in fact, Paine is consciously and explicitly appealing to the core ideals of the Enlightenment with its grand narrative of progress. Hume’s statement, by comparison, is remarkably free of such connections. So although the two authors can’t be harmonized, there are fairly clear grounds for saying that one of them is more in line with the overall spirit and trajectory of the Enlightenment on this score than the other. 

Now let’s apply this same approach to the Bible. While there is nothing to be gained by trying to force the different strands of tradition within the canon to agree with one another, that doesn’t mean we can’t make an informed judgment on which tradition is a more faithful representation of the overall spirit and trajectory of the biblical narrative. To quote once more from Craig C. Hill,

“Believers today are employed at the same essential task as the New Testament authors, namely, the attempt to make sense of their world in light of God’s self-disclosure in Jesus. I call this the ‘But in Christ’ project. Like us, the writers of the NT were located at particular moments in time and in specific cultural environments. Like us, they accepted much of their situation as given; however, at certain points they realized that their world was challenged by what they had seen of God in Christ. Those are the ‘But in Christ’ moments… I would contend that it is precisely at these junctures that the New Testament is most important and most revelatory.”⁴⁰ 

Again, the example of slavery illustrates the point. Like many architects of the Enlightenment, most of the biblical authors simply assumed the existence of slavery, and many passages, including several New Testament passages, offer tacit support to it (e.g., Eph. 6:5; Col. 3:22; 1 Tim. 6:1). We have recently developed the habit of ignoring these texts, but for nineteenth-century slaveholders they offered clear biblical support for their livelihood. On a much deeper level than individual proof-texts, however, we can see a God who loves to set captives free, a God who breaks in pieces the doors of bronze and cuts through the bars of iron, and we can see the biblical narrative moving on a trajectory towards a kingdom in which “there is neither slave nor free” (Gal. 3:28).⁴¹ This is not an arbitrary move. On the contrary, it is the only hermeneutic fitting to the magnitude of God’s self-disclosure in Jesus. “Is not Christ’s victory the greatest revelation in the Bible? Standing on this highest peak—that is, the finished work of the cross, causes us to see a much larger and far more beautiful panoramic view of God’s plan throughout the ages.”⁴² 

Applying this approach to the question of hell, it becomes clear that passages like Philippians 2:5-11 and Colossians 1:15-20 have not usually been allowed the place in court which they clearly deserve. Indeed, looking at the major passages for each view, one of the immediately striking features of the “universalist” texts is that they appear at some of the highest points of the New Testament, giving the deepest and fullest expression of God’s big plan in Christ. In other words, the “universalist” passages are to the question of hell what texts like Galatians 3:28 are to the question of slavery: just as there is neither slave nor free in Christ, so every knee will bow in the name of Jesus. In both cases we see the early Christians reaching beyond the nearsighted categories of this broken world and catching a fresh glimpse of what is possible in the wake of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. “In the crucified Christ we see what hell is, because through him it has been overcome.”⁴³ 

This is not to say that the strengths of universalism are restricted to a few key verses at the end of the Bible. On the contrary, those key verses form the upper branches of a tree whose root system spreads throughout the entire narrative of Scripture. But once we acknowledge the diversity of the biblical witness concerning hell and final judgment, the relevant hermeneutical question shifts, from finding the unified voice of Scripture to finding the theological and eschatological high points of Scripture—those places where God’s big plan in Christ is expressed most fully. The strength of universalism lies in its ability to honestly account for the texts that don’t fit while focusing on the larger biblical testimony concerning God’s character and on the overall direction of the biblical narrative towards the reconciliation of all things in Christ. It is on this basis that I believe universalism does more justice to the biblical data than either traditionalism or annihilationism. 

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¹Edward White, Life In Christ, 3rd ed (London: Stock, 1878), 293.

²How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth, 3rd ed (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2003), 23.

³Michael J. Gorman, Elements of Biblical Exegesis, Revised and Expanded Edition (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2009), 10.

⁴This is not to say that the exegetical process itself is simple or that proper exegesis equals neutral observation. On the question of whether and to what extent this kind of knowledge is possible, see N. T. Wright, The New Testament and the People of God (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992), 31-80, and Kevin J. Vanhoozer, Is There Meaning in This Text? (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1998).

⁵ http://www.patheos.com/blogs/peterenns/2015/06/what-biblicism-is-and-why-it-makes-baby-jesus-cry/ See also, e.g., Christian Smith, The Bible Made Impossible: Why Biblicism Is Not a Truly Evangelical Reading of Scripture (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2011), viii.

⁶For a good introduction to the many exegetical problems with biblicism, see Peter Enns, The Bible Tells Me So: Why Defending Scripture Has Made Us Unable to Read It (New York, NY: HarperOne, 2014).

⁷Georgia Purdom gives a typical biblicist response that fails to address the central questions: “Since the Bible is inerrant Judas cannot have died by hanging and died by falling and bursting open. Rather they are two different viewpoints of the same event” (https://answersingenesis.org/contradictions-in-the-bible/how-did-judas-die).

⁸One notable exception is Robin A. Parry (aka Gregory MacDonald), The Evangelical Universalist, 2nd Ed (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2012).

⁹Denny Burk, in his contribution to Zondervan’s new Four Views On Hell, bases his exegetical case for traditionalism almost entirely on Peterson’s work in IVP’s Two Views of Hell.

¹⁰Robert A. Peterson, Hell On Trial: The Case for Eternal Punishment (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 1995), vii.

¹¹This is a quote from D. A. Carson’s article, “Unity and Diversity in the New Testament: The Possibility of Systematic Theology,” in Scripture and Truth, eds. D. A. Carson and John D. Woodbridge (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan: 1983), 81-82.

¹²Ibid., 203-4. 

¹³Ibid., 155.

¹⁴“Does the Bible Teach Annihilationism?” BibSac 156 (Jan-Mar 1999), 16.

¹⁵Edward William Fudge, The Fire That Consumes: A Biblical and Historical Study of the Doctrine of Final Punishment, 3rd Ed (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2011), 86.

¹⁶Ibid., 90. To the nations that rise up against Israel, Judith 16:17 says that God “will send fire and worms into their flesh; they shall weep in pain forever.”

¹⁷Ibid., 71, 79.

¹⁸Ibid., 4-5.

¹⁹Ibid., 131.

²⁰Ibid., 84.

²¹Ibid., 69.

²²Craig C. Hill, In God’s Time: The Bible and the Future (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2002), 25.

²³On the questions of biblical inspiration and authority, see, e.g., Paul J. Achtemeier, Inspiration and Authority: Nature and Function of Christian Scripture (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1999) and N. T. Wright, Scripture and the Authority of God: How to Read the Bible Today (New York, NY: HarperOne, 2011).

²⁴Craig C. Hill, In God’s Time: The Bible and the Future (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002), 4.

²⁵Although, as we will see in the next two chapters, the biblical authors don’t typically use the language of death or destruction to signify a complete cessation of existence, as many annihilationists assume they do.

²⁶Jerome H. Neyrey (2 Peter, Jude [New York, NY: Doubleday, 1993], 122) speaks of “the current consensus that 2 Peter used Jude as a literary source and redacted that document in ways suitable to his historical situation.”

²⁷Richard Bauckham, Jude, 2 Peter (Waco, TX: Word Books, 1983), 252.

²⁸Fudge, The Fire That Consumes, 226.

²⁹David E. Aune, Revelation 6-16 (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 1998), 836.

³⁰Ibid.

³¹Richard Bauckham notes that the phrase “the kings of the earth” is probably taken from Psalm 2, which depicts “the nations” and “the kings of the earth” plotting to make war “against the Lord and his anointed” (The Theology of the Book of Revelation [New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 1993], 69). If that is true, it would make Rev. 21:24-25 all the more remarkable.

³²See, e.g., James D. G. Dunn, The Epistles to the Colossians and to Philemon (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1996), 104.

³³C. H. Dodd, New Testament Studies (Manchester University Press, 1953), 125.

³⁴This has been variously called a “trajectory” hermeneutic, a “developmental” hermeneutic, and a “redemptive-movement” hermeneutic. For a thorough introduction, see William J. Webb, Slaves, Women & Homosexuals: Exploring the Hermeneutics of Cultural Analysis (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2001).

³⁵One of the great virtues of this model, and the reason it recommends itself so strongly, is that it is easily applicable to the founding documents of any worldview.

³⁶Isaac Kramnick, ed., The Portable Enlightenment Reader (New York, NY: Penguin Books), 1995.

³⁷Ibid., 629.

³⁸Ibid., 647.

³⁹Ibid., 646.

⁴⁰Hill, 25.

⁴¹“Had this view of scripture and the gospel that it mediates been widespread among American Christians prior to the civil war … the proslavery party’s mobilization of the Bible to defend its position may well have more quickly disintegrated—which might have led to very different, less tragic and destructive subsequent historical outcomes” (Smith, The Bible Made Impossible, 170-71).

⁴²Mercy Aiken, “If Hell Is Real,” http://www.tentmaker.org/articles/ifhellisrealprintable.htm.

⁴³Jürgen Moltmann, “The Logic of Hell,” in God Will Be All In All: The Eschatology of Jürgen Moltmann, ed. Richard Bauckham (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2001), 46.

The Millennium Revisited: A Revolutionary Reading of Revelation 20 (Part 2)

Before the Millennium

Having established what kind of text we’re dealing with and how it would have been received by its original audience in the last post, we are now ready to look at the larger narrative context in which the millennium of Revelation 20 appears.

Revelation 20 doesn’t stand on its own. Within the narrative of John’s vision, the millennium is preceded by the judgment of the “beast” and the “false prophet” in 19:11-21. By following John’s allusions to the Old Testament, we can see that Daniel 7 forms the apocalyptic template for both passages (Bauckham, 106-7). In order to understand 20:1-6, therefore, appropriate attention must first be paid to 19:11-21. To read chapter 20 apart from chapter 19 is to miss the context of the millennium entirely.

Most readers, of course, have identified 19:11-21 with the second coming. But this does not seem to have been John’s intention. In fact, the inability of most commentators to see anything but the physical return of Jesus in this passage is a sign of the wide cultural gap that exists between the literary norms of our world and the prophetic tradition which was John’s native language. As R. J. McKelvey has pointed out, many of the commonest features of the early parousia tradition, and the OT passages from which they came, are absent from Revelation 19—like the motifs of a cloud theophany, a great trumpet call, the gathering of the saints, and (most significantly) the restoration of creation (McKelvey, 78-9). Instead, John’s portrait draws primarily from the “Divine Warrior” passages throughout the OT, a tradition expressed most often in connection with the judgment of nations within continuing history (e.g. Psalm 2; Isa. 63; Ezek. 1; Hab. 3). John has combined that Jewish tradition with the Greco-Roman portrait of a victory procession (e.g. the white horse and red robe) in order to parody the pomp of Rome and boldly proclaim its downfall (Fee, 274).

While this scene of judgment meets the faithful as a promise of vindication, however, it meets others as an urgent call to repentance (cf., 3:2-3; 16:15). This passage forms the angelic response to the embarrassing episode of 19:10, in which John himself nearly succumbs to the lure of idolatry. As the seer, John stands as the representative of the churches which he addresses, and his stumbling thus stands as a warning for them; the vision of the rider on the white horse reveals how God will respond to those who do not repent of their idolatry. As Jesus said to the church in Pergamum, prefiguring this scene: “Repent then. If not, I will come to you soon and make war against them with the sword of my mouth” (2:16).

The Binding of the Dragon

Following John’s narrative into 20:1-3, we must be careful not to confuse the visionary and symbolical levels with the referential level by simply picturing Satan himself bound in chains and imprisoned for a thousand years. To imagine this, and to thereby speak (as both amillennialists and premillennialists are guilty of doing) of the binding of Satan, runs the risk of a gross confusion of categories. Satan is not bound in Revelation 20; the dragon which represents Satan is bound. If we read the text historically, the binding and imprisonment of the dragon most naturally refers to the removal of the deceiving power which Satan held over the nations through the religion of Rome. The dragon is called “the deceiver of the whole world” in 12:9 and 20:3, and according to 13:14 it is through the false prophet (who looks like a lamb but speaks like a dragon) that he “deceives those who dwell on the earth, telling them to make an image for the beast.” With the judgment of Rome and the end of the idolatrous Caesar cult, therefore, Satan’s primary seat of authority is removed, his hands and feet tied, so that Jesus’ testimony can shine forth unhindered.

Thus, with Daniel 7 as his backdrop, John is showing that the suffering of the saints carries greater weight in God’s court than the brutal strength of Empire, and that through their witness the case of their accuser is reversed so that he, and not they, will eventually suffer the sentence of imprisonment and death (cf. 13:10). This reading also makes for a coherent interpretation of the dragon’s release at the end of the millennium (which, incidentally, the standard amillennial reading fails to do): the point is that once again, just like in the first century, there will be a widespread, systemic intolerance to the gospel of the Messiah, as well as a virulent attack against the covenant community that bears and proclaims his name.

The Verdict of Heaven

After the judgment of the beast and the imprisonment of the dragon, John then shows us the other side of the great reversal of fortunes: the vindication of the martyrs (20:4-6). One of the primary questions modern interpreters ask at this point is whether John has all the saints in mind or only the martyrs, but McKelvey is right to point out that this question probably never entered John’s head (82). The prospective martyrs are obviously the party in view here, but within John’s visionary world there are only two parties: those who worship the beast and those who don’t and thereby suffer under his hand (13:15). The martyrs are not presented here as a sub-group of the larger community of faith, but rather as visionary representatives of the whole community portrayed in juxtaposition with the followers of the beast.

But where does this vindication take place? Isn’t it obvious that the millennial kingdom is an earthly kingdom? Not at all, actually. We note first that all of the descriptions of earthly restoration in the closing passages of John’s vision are to be found in the “new heaven and new earth” of chapters 21-22, and not in the “thousand years” of chapter 20. There is no indication of a progressive restoration of the earth or of a return to the promise land in chapter 20, just as there is no rebuilt Jerusalem and no rebuilt Temple (Hill, 237-8). Especially considering John’s many allusions to the OT—which constitute our single greatest aid in understanding the way that he, the seer, understood his own vision—it is remarkable that he does not allude to any of the OT passages which have long been labeled “millennial” by both premillennialists and postmillennialists in his write-up of the millennium. In fact, John consistently saves such earthly associations for the post-millennial and eternal new earth of chapters 21-22.

On top of this, we note that the heavenly courtroom scene of Daniel 7:9-14 stands behind the vindication of the martyrs in Revelation 20:4-6. In that famous passage, “one like a son of man” is escorted into the presence of the Ancient of Days and is given dominion over all the kingdoms of the earth. That scene largely forms the OT background behind the vision of Revelation 4-5 as well, where John sees the risen Christ enter the heavenly throne room and receive the authority to complete God’s eschatological plan. If the heavenly scene of Daniel 7 stands behind chapters 4-5, where Christ receives his kingly authority in heaven, then it stands to reason that the martyr’s vindication in 20:4-6 itself belongs in heaven. This is confirmed twice over; first, by the appearance of “thrones” in v. 4, which almost everywhere else in Revelation belong in heaven; and, second, by the parallel scenes of heavenly vindication in 7:9-17, 11:11-13, and 15:2-4.

The Proto-Resurrection

One final point, which I believe puts the nail in the coffin of an earthly interpretation of Revelation 20:4-6, is the argument set forth by M. G. Kline in his article “The First Resurrection”. The crux of the argument is that throughout Revelation 20-21 the word translated “first” or “former” (protos) is consistently used to qualify things which belong to the pre-consummate order, in contrast to those things which are “new”, i.e. consummate. In Hellenistic Greek protos often had the sense of “former” in contrast with “latter”, or the first of two (e.g., Matt. 27:64; 1 Cor. 15:45-47; Heb. 8:13; 10:9). In Revelation 21:1-5 the word “first” is employed in juxtaposition with “new”: the consummation of history brings “a new heaven and a new earth” (v. 1), and a “new Jerusalem” (v. 2); indeed, it is the time when the Creator God makes “all things new” (v. 5)—and when the word “first” appears throughout the passage, it is used to speak of that which is superseded by the “new”. It may be good to see the words side by side to get the effect.

“Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away… There shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the first things have passed away… Behold I make all things new.”

In light of this contextual meaning of protos, Kline argues that we should not understand the “first resurrection” as denoting simply the first of the same kind in a temporal sequence of two, but rather a preliminary and inferior sort of resurrection to the ultimate bodily resurrection of the new order. It is a proto-resurrection, an anticipatory coming to life of the faithful souls in heaven as they await the new life of the consummation.

This is confirmed by observing the relationship between the first resurrection and the second death. The “second death” is not simply the loss of physical life which every person must experience, but rather a death after death, an ultimate death reserved for the wicked (20:14-15). Likewise, the “first resurrection” is not simply the return to bodily life which John envisions for all of humanity (20:12), but rather a resurrection before resurrection, a preliminary coming to life reserved for those who were faithful unto death, who are now blessed and holy because they are exempt from the power of the second death (20:6). In other words, when John speaks of the second death and the first resurrection, he is in both cases explaining a lesser known reality (eternal punishment and the heavenly intermediate state) by the terms of a more commonly known reality (death and resurrection). In both cases the adjective modifies the noun as carrying a metaphorical meaning. In the case of the “second death” it lets the reader know that this is a more ultimate destruction beyond what we normally refer to as death. In the case of the “first resurrection” it lets the reader know that this is a preliminary stage of life which is anticipatory to what we normally refer to as resurrection.

The point though, within the narrative of Revelation 20, is that these souls are seen as being alive in spite of having been killed by the beast. The focus of the passage is on their position in contrast with the position of the beast and the dragon and the wicked dead. Their fate is thereby contrasted with the fate of the beast, who ironically goes alive to the “second death”. If we do not bias the case a priori by the clumsy application of a literalist hermeneutic, then I think this reading clearly has the evidence in its favor.

The Meaning of the Millennium

Now, with all of the above in mind, we note that this passage looks back in fulfillment to the promise to the persecuted overcomers in 2:8-11. When John tells the saints in Smyrna to “be faithful until death” so that they will not be hurt by the “second death,” he is directly alluding to the later part of his vision in which the souls of the martyrs “come to life” and reign with Christ for a thousand years, thereby being exempt from the “second death” (20:4-6). In receiving this admonishment from Christ, the struggling saints in Smyrna would be uniquely comforted by the vision of the millennial reign and strengthened to stand fast in the face of persecution. The two passages belong together as promise and fulfillment, which points to at least one dimension of the numerical symbolism of the millennium.

We recall that the saints of Smyrna were told that Satan would be allowed to throw some of them into prison, in order to test them, for ten days (2:10). After the judgment of the beast, however, John sees the dragon himself thrown into the prison of the bottomless pit, not for ten days, but for the greatly multiplied number of a thousand years. Since the number ten represents totality or completion throughout Revelation (e.g., 12:3; 13:1; 17:3, 7, 12, 16), and because of the innertextual relationship between the millennium and the promise to the suffering saints in Smyrna, the “thousand years” very likely represents an intensification or heightening of the imprisonment period of 2:10 according to the law of retribution in kind, or lex talionis.

In other words, the purpose of the numerical symbolism, in its immediate application to the suffering Christians in Asia Minor, is to strengthen the conviction that their momentary light affliction is working the far exceeding glory of resurrection life, a great reversal of fortunes to be rewarded at the throne of the risen Messiah, even prior to their being clothed with new bodies at his return. The number may carry further meaning, but this is its most explicit reference.

Conclusion: Promise or Warning?

In light of all of the above, we conclude that John’s vision of the millennium presents the promise of life to the faithful and a powerful warning to those colluding with idolatry. It pulls back the curtain of history and shows the heavenly antitype to the tyrannous reign of Rome, the preliminary vindication of the suffering saints, and their participation in the priestly reign of the Messiah in anticipation of the day when he makes all things new. This view is thus markedly different from the classic expressions of the three main schools of thought. Instead of trying to create a synthesized eschatological timeline out of John’s vision, it focuses on the purpose of the vision itself in its original historical context. There can be little doubt that the suffering saints of Asia Minor would have received the vision as a promise of reward aimed directly at them, as they faced the prospect of imprisonment and possibly even of death for the sake of staying true to Christ. Whether the vision meets us now as promise or warning depends entirely on where we stand in relation to the testimony of Jesus.

______________

Bauckham, Richard. The Theology of the Book of Revelation. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993.

Fee, Gordon D. Revelation: A New Covenant Commentary. Eugene: Cascade Books, 2011.

Hill, Charles E. Regnum Caelorum: Patterns of Millennial Thought in Early Christianity. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2001.

Kline, Meredith G. “The First Resurrection.” WTJ 37 (1974/75): 366-75. Print.

McKelvey, R. J. The Millennium and the Book of Revelation. Cambridge: The Lutterworth Press, 1999.

The Millennium Revisited: A Revolutionary Reading of Revelation 20 (Part 1)

Introduction: Why the Millennium Matters

We find the idea of a thousand-year reign explicitly mentioned only once in Scripture, in Revelation 20:1-6. Like the creation narrative of Genesis 1, however, the millennium of Revelation 20 has often become a convenient staging ground for larger ideological battles which in fact have little or nothing to do with the exegesis of the chapter itself. For such a small piece of biblical real estate, Revelation 20 has a remarkable history of being trampled underfoot by warring theologians seeking to extend their own empires.

The aim of this study is to try to move past some of the noise of those battles, in order to hear afresh what the vision would have meant both to the seer himself and to the seven churches which he addressed. My contention is that the preoccupation of most interpreters with the goal of finding a synthesized eschatological timeline—whether premillennial, postmillennial, or amillennial—has only served to obscure the specific function which the passage holds in relation to the rest of John’s vision, which is something much more powerful and challenging than any timeline. I will argue that Revelation 20 must be read in the context of the struggling churches which comprised its original audience, and I will seek to demonstrate that for John and his first-century audience these verses promised the imminent, preliminary vindication of those who followed the Lamb unto death in resistance against the idolatrous and oppressive ideology of the Roman Empire. This chapter contains a vitally important message for the church, but it’s not the message that has preoccupied and divided Christians for centuries.

Before engaging directly with the text, however, we must first address an underlying issue of hermeneutics. The way we read any text is defined to a large extent by the assumptions we make about it. We don’t read a love song or a poem the same way that we read a biology textbook or a newspaper. So how should we read the book of Revelation? Is it mostly a literal description of history written in advance, a spiritual perspective on the battle between God and Satan throughout history, or something else?

The Anatomy of John’s Apocalypse

In one of the most important studies on the subject in recent years, Vern Poythress has argued that a proper reading of Revelation must distinguish between at least four different levels of communication: (1) the linguistic level, consisting in what John wrote and thus involving his own interpretive perspective and authorial creativity; (2) the visionary level, consisting in what John experienced when he was “in the Spirit”; (3) the referential level, consisting in the actual historical realities that the various images speak of; and (4) the symbolical level, consisting in how the visionary images speak of reality and what meaning they give to it by describing it in the ways that they do. Thus, when we read the text of Revelation 5:5-8, for instance, we must distinguish between what John wrote (the interpretive description of his vision with its many echoes of the OT), what John saw (a slaughtered yet living lamb, with seven horns and seven eyes, standing on the throne), what that refers to (the crucified and risen Jesus exalted to God’s right hand), and what significance the imagery lends to its referent (that the cross of Christ is central to the advancement of God’s eschatological purposes).

Recognizing the presence of these four distinct levels of communication throughout John’s vision is imperative for understanding its meaning. Much confusion over the symbolism of Revelation and other apocalyptic literature stems from a more basic confusion over different types of “meaning” (Caird, 37-61). When interpreters talk about the meaning of an apocalyptic prophecy, they rarely distinguish between “meaning” in terms of (1) intention, “meaning” in terms of (2) experience, “meaning” in terms of (3) referent, and “meaning” in terms of (4) significance. Of course, it’s simple enough to recognize those various levels with a text like Revelation 5:5-8, as we saw above, but it’s easy to forget when dealing with many other images throughout Revelation, not least the notorious thousand-year reign of 20:1-6.

When it comes to the millennium, futurists regularly collapse the second and fourth levels (the visionary experience and the larger meaning or significance) into the third level (what the experience refers to in the real world), and so they boldly proclaim that an image such as the binding of the dragon must speak of a literal incarceration of Satan, as if Satan was actually a dragon and John was simply witnessing history in advance (Poythress, 44-5). But if the genre of Revelation tells us anything, it is that John is less interested in giving reportorial precision on historical reality than he is in giving a heavenly perspective on its significance.

On the other hand, however, idealists are often guilty of collapsing the third level (what the experience refers to in the real world) into the fourth level (the implied meaning or significance that the experience carries), and so they often speak of the meaning of an image, like the “beast” of 13:1-8, as timeless and applicable to the church’s whole experience between Jesus ascension and his return, without any one specific referent. To this we must say, along with George Caird, that the “failure to identify the referent is bound to diminish our understanding of the sense, which is then left hanging in the air” (55).

The False Safety of Literalism

But how do we identify the referent? By what guiding principle should our interpretations be anchored? Here is where the great appeal of futurism lies, for it gives the simplest answer to this question. Influenced by the wider modernist reaction to the allegorical excesses of medieval exegesis, futurists generally default to interpreting Revelation’s imagery in a more or less literal way. This “literal if possible” hermeneutic is made explicit by Robert L. Thomas, who says that the only approach that is “fair and consistent” is to assume that the images of Revelation “have a literal meaning unless otherwise indicated in the text” (35-7).

The underlying assumption behind the literalist argument is that if we allow the language of Scripture to be interpreted non-literally we will then lose all hope of ever getting at its true historical meaning, because we can make it mean virtually whatever we want it to. This assumption is expressed, to varying degrees, even by many non-dispensational premillennialists. Thus Jack Deere, when considering various amillennial interpretations of Revelation 20:4-6, dismisses the idea of a symbolic resurrection with the assertion that “they use an allegorical technique which produces interpretations that are diverse and limited only by one’s fantasy” (Deere 66).

Granted, this fear is justified to some degree by the ahistorical way that many have interpreted the symbolism of prophecy throughout the history of the church (Grenz, 41-44). But the literalist method is in fact an extremely ironic stance to take, for it often keeps interpreters from reading biblical prophecy in the way that it asks to be read, grammatically and historically. Like American tourists looking for McDonald’s-style French fries in France, modern readers often come to the book of Revelation with an entirely wrong idea of what to expect in a piece of literature calling itself an apocalypse. Interpreting Revelation, or any literature from a culture other than our own, takes great care and is always a matter of delicate subtlety.

If we are sensitive to the text, we must admit that it contains many symbolic expressions that are never clearly explained as such. John never clearly indicates that the “lamb” is not an actual sheep, for instance, or that the “beast” is not an actual monster. But despite our modern predisposition towards literal interpretation, we all understand these expressions to represent something other than the images used to convey them. Why? Because they are obvious to us. But given the fact that these examples already force us to make exceptions to the rule of the literalist method, what basis do we have for insisting that there aren’t other instances of unexplained symbols in Revelation? In tested practice, the principle of “literal if possible” turns out to be an extremely blunt instrument which inevitably fulfills its own fears of subjectivity.

The biggest problem plaguing most popular interpretations of the book of Revelation is that they are not nearly as interested in understanding what the text would have meant in its original historical context as they are in what it can be seen to mean for our own time. While most futurist interpreters assume that the meaning of Revelation will become clearer as the end times approach, generally with the implication we are now at the beginning of that period, the text itself is addressed to seven churches in first-century Asia Minor and intends to speak openly to their contemporary situation (Kraybill, 26). Thus, the primary concern of the interpreter should be centered on the authorial intent and the public meaning which the imagery would have carried in the period in which it was given. The true interpretation is not necessarily the one which carries the most perceived value or spiritual application in the twenty-first century, but rather the one which best explains the text as it would have been understood by its original audience. It is the historical method, not the literalist method, that provides the guiding principle to which our interpretations must be anchored.

Reading Revelation Historically: Preliminary Conclusions

Two observations follow immediately from this approach. First, there is now a widespread agreement among scholars that the “beast from of the sea” refers to the Roman Empire, and that the “beast from the land” (also called the “false prophet”) refers to the religion of the Emperor which thrived throughout the cities of Asia Minor (Sheets, 197). Beyond reasonable doubt, this is how John’s original audience would have understood his imagery. The main issue at stake was whether John’s audience would continue to worship the crucified Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth, or succumb instead to the mounting pressure and bow the knee to Caesar (Kraybill, 23). If they refused to participate in the Caesar cult then they would have to face the prospect of persecution, imprisonment, and perhaps even death (cf., 2:10, 13). Thus John writes in order to comfort and admonish them to stand strong in the face of this great pressure and to persevere through the coming “hour of trial” which he sees by the Spirit just over the horizon (3:10).

Second, once we recognize the contemporary situation of John’s audience, we can easily understand why the crisis envisioned throughout the book is repeatedly qualified as being “near” and “at hand”. We should not understand such statements in the weak and indefinite sense suggested by a doctrine of perpetual imminence, but in the very real historical sense that the original audience would have undoubtedly understood them. In 22:10 John is told not to seal the words of the vision which he received, because “the time is at hand”. This phrase forms an inclusio with the introduction, where John’s audience is told to keep the words of the prophecy “for the time is at hand” (1:3). On top of this, the phrase “do not seal the words” is an ironic allusion to Daniel 8 and 12, where the prophet Daniel is told to “seal up” the words of his own visions and “go your way” because they refer to a time “many days in the future”, i.e. beyond Daniel’s own generation (Dan 8:26; 12:4, 9, 13). The explicit point in Revelation 22:10 is therefore the exact opposite: unlike Daniel, John is told not to “seal up” the words of his prophecy, because they refer to a great ordeal coming upon his own generation.

All of this context is necessary for an appropriate understanding of the millennium. Now that the ground has been cleared, we are ready to discuss the text of Revelation 20 and its place within the literary narrative of John’s vision. The proof of the reading for which I will argue in the next post will be how well it adheres to the principles discussed above.

_________________

Caird, G. B. The Language and Imagery of the Bible. London: Duckworth, 1980.

Deere, Jack S. “Premillennialism in Revelation 20:4-6.” Bsac 135 (1978) 58-73.

Grenz, Stanley J. The Millennial Maze: Sorting Out the Evangelical Options. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1992.

Koester, Craig R. Revelation and the End of All Things. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2001.

Kraybill, J. Nelson. Apocalypse and Allegiance. Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2010.

McKelvey, R. J. The Millennium and the Book of Revelation. Cambridge: The Lutterworth Press, 1999.

Poythress, Vern S. “Genre and Hermeneutics in Revelation 20:1-6.” JETS 36 (1993): 41-54. Print.

Sheets, Dwight D. “Something Old, Something New.” Jesus is Lord, Caesar is Not: Evaluating Empire in New Testament Studies. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2013.

Thomas, Robert L. Revelation 1-7: An Exegetical Commentary. Chicago: Moody Press, 1992.

Walvoord, John E. The Millennial Kingdom. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1959.

The Olivet Discourse: Was Jesus Wrong?

Last summer I started a series on the Olivet Discourse (here and here) that I now have no intention of finishing, because I no longer agree with the premise. I still hold to essentially the same view of the relevant gospel texts, but I now feel that I was unfair in my representation of the alternatives (and I must thank my friend Casey Gorsuch for setting me straight). Following the brilliant but deeply flawed work of Albert Schweitzer, and the damaging responses of G.B. Caird and N.T. Wright, I framed the debate as a choice between two basic positions:

If we agree on the authenticity of Mark 13 and its parallels, then we can say either (a) that Jesus expected the actual end of history imminently over the horizon, and that he was embarrassingly wrong in that prediction [Schweitzer], or (b) that he was using vivid metaphors as a way of investing thoroughly historical events with their full theological significance, and that this prediction was in fact powerfully vindicated in the events which transpired after his death [Caird and Wright]. According to the first view, the “coming of the son of man” refers literally to the return of Jesus from heaven to earth. According to the second view, the “coming of the son of man” is an apocalyptic symbol which speaks of the exaltation of Jesus and his followers over the present ruling regime in Jerusalem, a prediction which was then fulfilled in the events of 66-70AD.

Siding with Caird and Wright, I then explained that the basic problem with Schweitzer’s view (a problem which it ironically shares with the futurist interpretations of conservative scholars) is that it fails to understand Jesus’ language in its own historical context, language which was regularly used to refer to events within continuing history. I believe Schweitzer was right to stress the timing of Jesus’ predictions in relation to his contemporary audience (on which, see this post), but he made the same modernist error as the futurist school by assuming Jesus’ language referred literally to the end of the world. I’ve dealt with the OT background of the “coming of the son of man” in this post, and with the OT background of the language of “cosmic collapse” in this post, so you can see why I’ve come to the same conclusion as Caird in his 1965 lecture Jesus and the Jewish Nation:

[W]hatever we may say about the Parousia or Advent of Christ in the epistles, there is a strong case for saying that the Day of the Son of Man in the teaching of Jesus remained firmly in the sphere of national eschatology. Here, as in the book of Daniel, from which the imagery is drawn, the coming of the Son of Man on the clouds of heaven was never conceived as a primitive form of space travel, but as a symbol for a mighty reversal of fortunes within history and at the national level… Supposing the prediction of the coming of the Son of Man on the clouds of heaven really was an answer to the disciples’ question about the date of the fall of Jerusalem! Is it indeed credible that Jesus, the heir to the linguistic and theological riches of the prophets, and himself a greater theologian and master of imagery than them all, should ever have turned their symbols into flat and literal prose?

I still think Caird makes a powerful point against the literalism of both Schweitzer and the futurists. In Daniel 7 the “coming of the son of man” is a symbol for the vindication of the saints, not a literal description of some supernatural figure’s decent to the earth; and in passages like Isaiah 13:10 and Jeremiah 4:23-26 the language of cosmic collapse is figurative for the judgment of nations, not a literal description of the destruction of the universe.

And yet, there’s a problem here. The extreme literalism of Schweitzer’s position has been set up in such a way that it makes preterism look like the only sensible alternative: Because this language isn’t literal and Jews like Jesus didn’t believe in the end of the space-time universe, it must not refer to the final end but rather to some event of judgment and vindication within continuing history. But why is this the case? Granted the premise that such language isn’t literal and Jews like Jesus didn’t believe in the end of the world, they still believed in an end (read: consummation) to history. So how do we know Jesus wasn’t speaking of the “end of the age” in the same sense as the disciples’ question in Matthew 24:3, i.e. as the climactic, worldwide moment of judgment and deliverance by which God would establish his kingdom finally and fully?

In other words, just because the language isn’t literal doesn’t prove that it refers to something within continuing history as opposed to something at the end of history. Daniel’s “son of man” is symbolic, to be sure, but it still speaks of the final establishment of God’s kingdom and the end of all tyranny and injustice. Is there any indication that Jesus was predicting anything less? Is there any indication that Jesus envisioned a substantial gap between the destruction of Jerusalem and the final establishment of God’s kingdom, and that in the Olivet Discourse he intentionally spoke to only the first of those two events? What about Luke 21:25-26? Or Matthew 25:31-46? Are preterist interpretations perhaps just as guilty of avoiding the facts as futurist interpretations?

I don’t believe so. As I said before, I still hold to essentially the same view of the relevant texts that I set out to defend in those posts last summer. But I thought it was important, for honesty’s sake, to reframe the debate; because when we put the question this way, the answer appears substantially less obvious than I previously supposed. Of course this then puts us in the uncomfortable position of entertaining the possibility that some of Jesus’ prophecy simply didn’t come to pass. But unless we deal with such possibilities openly and honestly, our belief in the authority of Scripture becomes only a lame attempt at reducing our own cognitive dissonance.

The Failure of Futurism

Nothing happened. May 21, 2011 came and went just like any other day, despite the highly publicized prediction of Family Radio host Harold Camping that Jesus would return at 6pm local time and begin his rapture cycle around the earth. Instead of allowing this failed prediction to challenge his “hidden meaning” method of decoding the Bible, however, Camping rationalized that his calculations must have been off by a few months and that the actual apocalypse would take place on October 21 of that year. It wasn’t until March 2012 that Camping admitted he had been mistaken. Needless to say, if Leon Festinger hadn’t already published his study on cognitive dissonance half a century ago, someone surely would have been inspired to do so by this tragic episode.

Most Christians recognize the overt absurdity of Camping’s method of pulling hidden predictions out of Scripture. Only isolated fringe groups do that. On a much more subtle level than Camping, however, there is a prevalent tendency amongst the faithful to rationalize “unfulfilled prophecies” into the future. In fact, I would argue that this is the whole foundation of the futurist system of biblical interpretation. Camping attempted to preserve faith in his failed prediction by pushing it into the future; the futurist system turns this thinly veiled coping mechanism into a controlling principle when dealing with biblical prophecy.

Before we go on, however, I should clarify exactly what I’m talking about. In theological parlance, labels like “futurism” and “preterism” speak of a systematic priority that governs the way someone approaches biblical prophecy in general, or at least predominately. It is the particular systematic priority of futurism, and the logic which regularly undergirds it, which is the object of my criticism in this post. My argument does not preclude the possibility of any future interpretations, just the underlying logic of the futurist system, which in many cases has no other reason for saying that a passage is concerned with our future except that the past event to which it seemed to be looking forward did not play out exactly like the passage said it would. My criticism here could just as easily be applied to preterism, but that’s a subject for another day.

I used to take a consistently futurist approach to biblical prophecy. Whether it was Jeremiah’s lengthy oracle against Babylon in Jeremiah 50-51, Ezekiel’s panoramic vision of a rebuilt temple in Ezekiel 40-48, Jesus’ Olivet Discourse in each of the Synoptic Gospels, or John’s vision of the “Beast” and the “Harlot” in Revelation 17-19, I would always assume a literal interpretation of the text, and, because of my faith in its inspiration, I would always assume it referred to events still to come in the future, thousands of years after it was given, since it obviously hadn’t yet been fulfilled. A futurist reading, I thought, was the only faithful approach to such passages.

It took me several years to realize that my commitment to futurism was ironically based in the same rationalizing tendency as the allegorical school which I so strongly opposed. As different as those two approaches are in their outworking interpretations, the same controlling agenda which drove Origen and Augustine to spiritualize whole books of the Old Testament drove me to project every seemingly unfulfilled prophecy into the future. That rationalizing tendency, that controlling agenda, arose from the psychological need to erase discrepancies when newly perceived data (in this case, the apparent non-fulfillment of prophecies with explicitly time-sensitive content) conflicted with my strongly held beliefs (in this case, my faith in the authority of Scripture). The challenge I faced, however, was in trying to reconcile my futurism with a consistently historical reading of Scripture. It was because I could not, on the last analysis, bring myself to change the meaning of the text into something it never intended to say that I could no longer in good conscience remain a futurist.

There are two primary questions that the student of biblical prophecy must face. First, what does this prophecy mean? Second, has this prophecy been fulfilled? Both questions are important, but the integrity of our exegesis depends largely on keeping them separate and in their proper order. The biggest problem with most interpreters is that they let the question of fulfillment drive the question of meaning, instead of first addressing the question of meaning on its own terms. This is particularly true for those interpreters who are committed to a high view of Scripture. “The Olivet Discourse has to be about the future,” so the line often goes, “because it obviously wasn’t fulfilled in the past, and we know that Jesus couldn’t have been wrong.” But if we really believe in the authority of Scripture, then we should always assume that the interpretation arrived at through the inductive process will be the one with the most Spirit-filled application for our own time, regardless of our expectations.

The point here is not that we have to give up a high view of Scripture, but that we can’t let our prior commitments about the nature of Scripture determine in advance what the text can and cannot say. Of course this then puts us in the uncomfortable position of entertaining the possibility that some biblical prophecies simply didn’t come to pass. But unless we deal with such possibilities openly and honestly, our belief in the authority of Scripture becomes only a lame attempt at reducing our own cognitive dissonance.

As self-evident as this is, however, it’s remarkable how often it is either forgotten or ignored. The besetting sin of futurist interpreters, in their approach to prophetic passages throughout Scripture, is their deeply felt need to liberate the text from the embarrassing constraints of its own time. Such interpreters are not really interested in understanding what the text would have meant in its original historical context, but only in what it can be seen to mean for our own time. Thus, where Jeremiah pronounces a retributive judgment on Babylon and its king for their treatment of Judea, or where Ezekiel foresees a rebuilt temple after the regathering of his people from exile, or where Jesus predicts the son of man’s coming within the generation of his listeners, or where John predicts the sudden destruction of the great city which reigned over the kings of the earth in his own day—in all of these cases futurists feel the need to lift the referent of the prophetic text out of the immediate future of the original audience and into our future, in order to thereby save the text from the reproach which, upon the assumption of a literalist reading, would undoubtedly come upon it. Where was the bloody, violent, and absolute destruction which Jeremiah pronounced on Babylon? Where was “the coming of the son of man” in the lifetime of Jesus’ listeners? Where, indeed, was the fulfillment of all of the cataclysmic events foreseen by John in the book of Revelation?

When confronted with such unpleasant difficulties, futurists see two basic options: either (a) we admit that the text was uninspired, unathoritative, and glaringly wrong in its predictions about the future, or (b) we project it into the future and thereby protect its inspired status. So like Peter in Gethsemane, we unsheathe our swords and cut away. But like Peter, we fail to consider that there might be other alternatives besides the two extremes of denying our Lord or plugging our ears and fighting to save face. Are we sure we understand what the prophecies are all about? As a true post-Enlightenment Westerner, I used to assume a literalist reading of all biblical prophecy, giving very little room for metaphorical, symbolic or hyperbolic modes of speech; but I have since come to realize that such a commitment rarely does justice to the intention of the biblical prophets themselves. Jesus’ intention with respect to “the coming of the son of man” is a prime example of this. If we endeavor to understand Jesus’ words historically, then the rigid literalism of the futurist school appears at once grossly anachronistic and impossibly constricting.

Before we can even contemplate the possibility of other alternatives, however, we must face the music; we must give proper recognition to the text’s fundamental rootedness in its own time, whatever the outcome. When prophecies with historical detail and context such as Jeremiah 50-51 aren’t “fulfilled” in a rigidly literal, meticulous sort of way, the futurist assumption is that we should simply lift the text from its stated context and postulate a future one-to-one fulfillment. But if our primary aim is to handle such passages with exegetical integrity, as indeed it should be, then we simply cannot ignore the specific indicators of historical context and authorial intent. Jeremiah was not speaking against a nation that did not exist at that time or a king who had not yet been born. No, he speaks against a contemporary nation and its king for the evil which they had committed against Judah in the years 599-586BC, which Jeremiah himself witnessed and documented at length. The whole point of the passage, resting on the law of retribution, is that the violence and destruction which Nebuchadnezzar dealt to Israel would come back upon his own head (cf. 50:17-18, 29; 51:34-35). Exegesis demands this conclusion.

To claim, on the other hand, that this passage must speak of a future period, because several details of the prophecy did not play out exactly as described, is a decidedly eisegetical move. Instead of reading the text inductively and asking the appropriate questions of authorial intent and public meaning, the futurist view relies entirely on a deductive process of elimination, looking outside of the prophecy and imposing its own set of criteria for what it can and can’t mean based entirely on what did and what did not in fact occur thereafter. Such an abstract a priori has absolutely nothing to do with what the text itself would have meant in the world in which it was written, but has everything to do with maintaining a particular theological construct despite all the evidence to the contrary. If it didn’t happen, just transpose it into the future. It must not have meant what it said. The original audience probably didn’t get it. The prophet himself probably didn’t get it. But we get it.

By thus lifting the passage out of its own world of meaning and supplying another we lose all anchorage with the only context in which the text itself makes sense. This is not exegesis. Genuine exegesis is committed to listening to the text on its own terms—and if history does not play out exactly like the passage said it would, then we should ask the question why. Perhaps we’ve misunderstood the content of the prophecy, or perhaps something transpired afterwards which altered the terms of the prophecies’ fulfillment. Remember, the God of the prophets regularly speaks about what will happen if humans presently respond in such and such a way; he does not speak in an abstract vacuum of time and space about what will happen regardless of the present human response. The whole point of prophecy is to produce a response, a change; and if all men responded then no prophecy of judgment would ever come to pass (cf. Jer. 18:7-11).

In other words, we are not bound to reject the truth of biblical prophecy by remaining faithful to the text. But then, even if we can’t find a solution to every text in which this problem appears, it’s a much more honest display of faith in the authority of Scripture to first take the text at its own terms, and then to say “I don’t know” in reply to the question of fulfillment, than to try to save face by suggesting the text actually refers to something else, something easier to get our hands around. That’s not true faith; that’s doubt in disguise. And that is why I am no longer a futurist.

All Things Fulfilled: The New Testament’s (Re)interpretation of the Old Testament

Some time ago I advanced a thesis for reading the Old Testament in light of Jesus’ death and resurrection. My conclusion there was this:

“that the cross and resurrection provide us with a hermeneutical key to pick up when history has done its work, a principle which gives us a way to move beyond the old (and slightly Gnostic) spiritualizing method of Origen and Augustine and yet still remain faithful to the apostolic use of the OT.”

I suggested my present view cautiously in that post, warning beforehand that “I’m by no means settled on all of this”. But two years have now come and gone, and I’m much more settled now than I was then. So I’d like to take some time and flesh out that paradigm in more detail.

I            The Law and the Prophets: Continuity and Discontinuity

Most Christians would agree that there is both continuity and discontinuity in the New Testament’s relation to the Old Testament. We wear mixed fibers in our clothing, we no longer make annual sacrifices for our sins, and we would never think of kicking anyone out of the church for not being circumcised. There are 613 precepts contained in the first five books of the Bible, and most Christians don’t even know half of them. Why? Partly because we all understand that redemptive history has moved on to some extent, that something changed drastically with Jesus’ death and resurrection. To echo N. T. Wright: God’s story has taken a new turn, and while that new turn stands in continuity with the previous acts in the story, those previous acts cannot be repeated.

Point being: No one who takes the NT seriously would argue that the Torah, with many of its time-sensitive and Israel-centric ordinances, carries directly into this new age as it stands. As Paul says, the law served as a schoolmaster to lead God’s people to Christ, but now that Christ has come the schoolmaster is no longer necessary; not because it was a bad thing (or even an irrelevant thing) now to be happily disregarded, but because it was a good thing that has served its purpose. It has fulfilled its role in the story as God intended. But now, through Jesus, God’s people have been renewed and reconstituted into a worldwide and spirit-empowered family: “For as many as were baptized into the Messiah have put on the Messiah. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Jesus. And if you are the Messiah’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise” (Gal 3:27-29). This is the underlying rationale for why the law cannot govern God’s people as it used to: because Abraham’s family has been transformed in the Messiah. To echo Wright once more: the new age has dawned, a new act has begun. The actors cannot simply repeat one of the preceding acts in a new scene with a new setting; God’s people cannot live as if they belonged to the old age.

Again, so far I doubt many would disagree. But the controversy starts when we begin to consider the OT prophets in the same light as the law. Despite the controversy, however, it should be obvious that the prophets often envisaged Israel’s future under the conditions of their own covenantal context, i.e. the conditions of Torah. They looked forward in hope to a renewed earth and a renewed humanity, and they regularly gave God’s people conditional promises concerning their place in the new age based on fidelity to their calling as God’s people. The assumed helper toward the fulfillment of this calling was, of course, the Torah (e.g. Isa. 2; Mic. 4; Zech 8). And, under Torah, the assumed place and means of forgiveness, the place where God would meet his people, was of course the Temple (e.g. Ezek. 40-48).

But if we acknowledge this, that Torah and Temple are common features of the future held out for Israel in OT prophecy, then we must admit that a real discontinuity exists between that prophecy and what the early Church believed in the wake of the resurrection. If we are committed to (a) reading the whole of Scripture historically, believing that the Spirit inspired real people in real space and time, and (b) acknowledging the discontinuity between the new age launched by Christ and the old age in which the prophets spoke, then it simply won’t work to try to build a scheme in which prophecies like Ezekiel 40-48 (for instance) can be taken as they stand in light of what Jesus has done. Why? Because Torah and Temple no longer hold the place they once did, because God has been faithful to the covenant apart from Torah, through Jesus, and through Jesus he has done what the Temple could never do. We need not go further than Galatians or Hebrews to see that prophecies given under the Old Covenant must be transposed into the New Covenant in light of the new act in which we find ourselves, as a worldwide and forgiven family transformed through Jesus and the Spirit. As the writer of Hebrews puts it, Christ has become the mediator of a better covenant, established on better promises (Heb 8:6).

With all of this in mind we are now ready to address one accusation head on. Contrary to what the dispensationalists often claim, deciding which parts of OT prophecy can be taken as they stand and which must be transposed in light of Christ’s coming is not at all an arbitrary affair. It’s not as if we can just pick out which bits of prophecy we like at random and then throw away all the bits we don’t like. Rather, prophecy given under the Old Covenant stands in continuity and discontinuity to the New Covenant the same as the law, and therefore it must be treated in the same way. It cannot simply be lifted out of its own context and plugged into ours without either spiritualizing it in some way (and thus doing significant damage to the text) or by greatly downplaying the radical change effected in world history by Christ’s death and resurrection. And therefore it follows that, unless one takes a position toward the OT like that of Paul’s opponents in Galatians, reinterpretation of some sort must be regarded as inescapable.

This last point needs more spelling out, so let’s develop it by taking a closer look at Ezekiel 40-48, which I think presents a good case study of much Old Testament prophecy.

II            The Problem of Ezekiel 40-48

As Christians, when we try to make sense of passages like Ezekiel 40-48, we are faced with at least three coherent options at the hermeneutical level. First, we could accept it as it stands and understand it as still awaiting fulfillment, thus acknowledging that in the future there will be sacrifices made to “atone” for sin so that God might “accept” his people. Or, second, we could spiritualize it like Origen and Augustine and see the Temple as speaking of God’s “building made without human hands” and the continual sacrifices as somehow speaking of Christ’s once-for-all-time sacrifice. Or, third, we could simply acknowledge its grammatical-historical meaning under the Old Covenant, thus acknowledging the essential aspects of discontinuity with the New Covenant, and thereby understand the promise as being transformed and expanded through Jesus’ death and resurrection. The first option sits loose to the New Testament and the second sits loose to the Old Testament. The third option, in my opinion, is the only one that does justice to the text of both Testaments, reading them on their own terms and in their own historical settings.

There is a fourth option which I did not mention, however, which is kind of a hybrid of options (1) and (2). Most conservative Evangelicals throughout the last century have held this hermeneutic, whether consciously or subconsciously. This view is similar to option (1) in that it sees prophecies like Ezekiel 40-48 as still awaiting fulfillment in the future, but it varies in that it tries to make them compatible with the terms of the New Covenant. While proponents of this view often pride themselves in taking the text “literally” and by its “plain sense meaning”, they regularly shoot themselves in the foot by denying that ideal in favor of making Old Testament prophecy compatible with the New Covenant.  Put another way, those who take this route inevitably commit themselves to a spiritualizing hermeneutic of their own, simply by imposing NT meaning onto an OT text in which it has no place. Saying that the “sin offerings” of Ezekiel 45 are merely “memorials looking back to the sacrifice of Christ” is, of course, the classic example of this, but there are many more.

But if we are to be truly faithful to what the text of Ezekiel 40-48 really says, reading it on its own terms and in its own covenantal context, then we simply cannot think that this vision still awaits a one-to-one fulfillment under the New Covenant. Rather we must conclude that there is a fundamental discontinuity between what Ezekiel saw and what will now come to pass under the New Covenant, in light of the greater salvation which Israel’s god has brought about by the faithfulness of Jesus the Messiah. Under the Old Covenant Ezekiel saw a 10-mile-wide city with God’s presence inhabiting a beautifully rebuilt temple where sacrifices for sin take place continually, but under the New Covenant John saw a 1,500-mile-wide city where God’s presence is everywhere, there is no need for a temple because God in Christ is the Temple, and as the “Lamb” Christ died for sin once and for all. John’s vision is self-consciously dependent upon Ezekiel’s vision, but at the same time it completely transcends it. John understands, in other words, that the promise of Ezekiel 40-48 has been expanded by the grace of God revealed in Christ.

III            Implications for All Old Testament Prophecy

These observations from Ezekiel obviously have implications beyond Ezekiel to how we must read the rest of OT prophecy, and even further implications for how we must reread that prophecy in the light of what God has done through Jesus. So, for instance, when we attempt to read passages like Isaiah 2 or Zechariah 8 faithfully and honestly, as they were written, we must acknowledge (first) that the “law” going forth from Zion meant the Jewish law, i.e. the Torah, with all its civil and ceremonial aspects included, and that (second) far from reflecting a special sub-calling or “leadership role” within the body of Christ, the reason why a Gentile would “grasp the sleeve of a Jewish man” and “seek the Lord in Jerusalem” is precisely because the covenantal vantage-point of the prophet included as a basic tenet of its worldview the belief that Israel was God’s chosen people amongst all the peoples of the earth, that they were given the grand vocation of being a “kingdom of priests” for all the nations.

When we turn to the NT, we find that Paul quotes from the Zechariah passage about the Gentile grasping the sleeve of the Jew and applies it to his largely Gentile audience, saying that the witness of the Spirit in their midst will lead outsiders to fall down on their faces, worship YHWH, and “report that God is truly among you” (1 Cor 14:25). In other words, Paul sees the eschatological renewal of God’s people taking place now through the work of Spirit, and he intentionally includes Gentiles in the renewed “Israel” that God is using to bear witness by his Spirit to the nations. This is supported by how Paul speaks of these Gentile Christians throughout 1 Corinthians. In 10:1, for instance, Paul includes the Corinthians into the history of Israel by saying that “our fathers” came out of slavery, passed through the Red Sea and received the law at Sinai. The apostle takes it for granted, in other words, that the family of God in Corinth simply is the family rescued by God from Egypt, now transformed and expanded, but still the same family. Later in the same chapter he contrasts this renewed family with “Israel according to the flesh” (v. 18), and two chapters later he tells these believers that they “were once Gentiles, carried away to these dumb idols, however you were led” (12:2). This demonstrates that within Paul’s first century context the term “Gentile” effectively meant “outside the covenant” or “pagan”, and the clear implication is that Paul now thinks of these Gentile believers as “Jews”, inasmuch as the semantic range of the term “Jew” included the opposite sense of “within the covenant” (cf. Est 8:17; 9:27; Rom 2:28-29; Rev 2:9).

It’s passages like these, which are myriad throughout the NT, that simply won’t let the hermeneutical question go to rest: How can we do justice to the details of both the OT (Zechariah’s original meaning) and the NT (Paul’s re-appropriation of Zechariah’s meaning to Gentiles) except by concluding that something dramatic has occurred in history, something which was previously “hidden” and is only now “revealed”, something that, in the long-range wisdom of God, necessarily changes the way God’s previously revealed plan finds its fulfillment?

One thing at least is clear: What is really at stake in debates about the ongoing role of Israel is a particular way of understanding the relationship between the OT and the NT. For many American evangelicals, being faithful to Scripture entails finding a way for all “unfulfilled” OT prophecies to find their (more or less) literal fulfillment in the future, regardless of how uneasily those prophecies might sit with the NT. For an increasing number of Bible-reading Christians, however, being faithful to Scripture means first and foremost reading the text of both Testaments on their own terms and in their own historical settings. This paradigm allows these Christians to trust what the text really does say and not try to force it into a place where it does not fit. Instead of trying to figure out a complex scheme whereby every OT prophecy might come true as it stands under the New Covenant, and in some way or another doing damage to its historical meaning, the great virtue of this view is that it frees us to acknowledge the historical meaning while recognizing that the scope of what the prophets saw has been greatly expanded by the grace of God revealed in Christ. Nothing has been lost; everything has been gained.

In Christ,

Matt