Shortly after my conversion experience when I allowed Jesus his proper role of Lord in my life, I was given a book entitled When Your Money Fails. This was in 1985, and it was all about the looming economic crisis that was going to usher in a worldwide dictatorship and a united economic system, thus setting up for the anti-Christ to take over the world and Jesus to rapture the church. While this was not endorsed by the Methodist church that I was attending at the time, certain more ‘fundy’ friends felt that, since I had just entered into a new life in Christ, I needed to understand that that life was going to be coming to a very sudden and dramatic end. It was going to be horrible – unlike anything the world had ever seen before – and I needed to be praying for it to happen soon. It all sounded weird, but what did I know?
While the description above is the popular eschatology of the day, it wasn’t always so. In fact,the whole idea of the church being ‘raptured’ - that is, whisked away into space as Jesus comes part way from heaven to earth to meet us, thus sparing believers the worst of the anti-Christ’s wrath – was a theology that didn’t even exist until1830 when a Scottish pastor name John Darby, well, made it up. The word ‘rapture’ appears nowhere in Scripture.
One of the major sources of confusion comes from how one understands Jesus’ Olivet Discourse. In this discourse with his disciples, Jesus is answering the question, “When will the temple be destroyed?” We know from history that this happened around 70 AD during the reign of Nero. Jesus further makes it clear that he is speaking of the near future when he says, “This generation will not pass away before these events come to pass.” Yet Darby and others have insisted that Jesus was speaking of the end of history because his disciples ask about ‘the end of the age’. Given the context of the rest of the passage, it is almost certain that this is a reference to the end of the age of blood sacrifices, not the end of all history. If this discourse is really about events in the first century, much of the rest of dispensationalist eschatology crumbles immediately.
Perhaps the best argument against dispensational end times theology, though, is the credibility of their own teachers. In Deuteronomy 18:22 it says, “If the prophet speaks in the LORD's name but his prediction does not happen or come true, you will know that the LORD did not give that message.” Some of the major endorsers of dispensationalism have predicted specific ends times events, and those who have: Hal Lindsey, Pat Robertson, John Hagee and the like, have been consistently wrong. Scripture tells us to disregard them. Period.
Okay, but what if there is some truth in their doctrine? I guess disregarding everything they say could be throwing out the baby with the bathwater. After all,what about the restoration of Israel? After centuries in exile, the Hebrew people have a homeland once again. Hagee has built the entire Christian Zionist movement around this remarkable historical event. But if, as Hagee argues, the restoration of Israel to the land once promised to Abraham will usher in the return of Jesus, Israel will need to more than double in size from its current area. Biblical Israel, you see, was much larger than its modern day namesake.
Of course, one of the leading characters in the dispensational view of the end times is the anti-Christ. They describe a cunningly demonic world dictator who will elevate himself to the one, universal object of worship. He will be identified by the number 666 (616in Latin), whatever that means. But what does scripture say? First of all, we are told that “every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. Thisis the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world.” (I John 4: 3). Any spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus as the Messiah; that is the Christ –is an anti-Christ. If you consider the entomology of the word, this makes perfect sense: anti = opposed; Christ = Messiah; therefore anti-Christ = opposed to the teaching that the Messiah has come. It’s simply a label for a pretty common doctrinal belief, namely Jesus was a good man, or a prophet, or never reallyexisted, or anything other than he was the fulfillment of the Old Testament prophets. Nothing ghoulish, no totalitarian despot, merely a simple, common heresy.
As for 666 (or 616 in Latin), this is representative of a name using an ancient Hebrew acrostic, (and was never directly said to be connected with the anti-Christ, but rather the 'beast'). If God were using John to tell us, two millennia later who the dreaded end times ruler was, why would he use an obscure, ancient riddle? Don’t you think he’d just say, “The anti-Christ will be named this or that.” But, if John were referring to someone powerful and alive at that time,writing in a code that his people would clearly recognize would be logical. Early Greek transcripts , presumably translated from the Hebrew, give the name an acrostic value of 666. Later Latin transcripts give the name the value of 616. According to historian and theologian R C Sproul, Nero Caesar’s name in Hebrew using this system would equal 666. In Latin, his name would equal 616. This is the same Nero who soaked Christians in tar, ignited them and used them as street lights. This is the same Nero who demanded the people worship him alone. Nero was alive at the time Revelation was written. The passage that refers to his number is in the 13th chapter of Revelation. If it's true that this chapter is still referring to events unfolding in the first century, then much of the book often assumed to be aboutthe distant future is more likely to be prophecies of things between 54 and 70AD. Even Revelation 1:1 says John is writing of things soon to come.
Revelation also tells us that every tribe and tongue (language group) will eventually be evangelized with the Gospel. The fact is, while the majority of the population has at least heard the story of Jesus at this point in history, a full 1/3 of tribal and language groups have not. Most ofthese are small in number and lacking any political influence, but they are notinsignificant to God. History will notend until these people have their own indigenous church.
I realize history will end. Even atheist acknowledge that, if global warming or famine or war doesn’t bring history to an end, the sun will burn out in 5 billion more years, give ortake. As a Christian, I believe Jesus will return to bring it to a close, but the details as to how or when are vague at best. Therefore, I do not believe all the charts and pseudo-science fictional events that have become so popular in the last two centuries.
I’m no theologian, and I may be wrong. I’m not going to stake my eternal life onthese points, but I do believe that proper eschatology is important; more tothe point, bad eschatology is dangerous (more on that in another blog). I also believe that I will live to a ripe old age, and my daughters will be around for a full life as well. Besides, my car just passed inspection, and Ireally don’t want to be raptured away until I get another full year out of it.