Lesser Known Views in Christian Eschatology - Ready to Harvest

 

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Lesser Known Views in Christian Eschatology 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRSHDfQxhco

Christian Eschatology is the set of beliefs Christians have on the end times. You probably know about many of these, like premillennialism, postmillennialism, and amillennialism. These can further be broken down into preterist, idealist, historicist and futurist points. I covered the most popular perspectives in my video on Christian Eschatology Explained. Now, let’s look at the more unusual viewpoints, as well as some not-so-unusual viewpoints, but ones that are just talked about less. I won’t be re-defining terms in this video, so if you want a primer on what terms mean, watch that video first.

In the last video, we discussed futurism as it relates to premillennialism, but what about the other two positions? Postmillennialist futurism seems to not really exist. Not that it couldn’t exist, but just that no person has found the view persuasive, or Biblical perhaps. A postmillennial futurist would say that most of the Biblical eschatological passages relate to events in the future, and that the second coming is after the millennium. So the world gets better and better as the millennium progresses and, and then suddenly devolves into the chaotic end-times apocalyptic events. That’s pretty strange, so I leave it as a blank. However, Amillennial futurism does exist. This view sees much of the book of Revelation as referring to actual future events, such as a future antichrist and Tribulation period, but views the millennium as symbolic and taking place now. An example of this view is Joseph Meiring’s chapter in the book “the four keys to the millennium.”

Now, let’s add another column for preterism. The viewpoint of “partial preterism” which is held to by many within various Christian denominations is actually radically different from what is called “full preterism”, which is taught mostly by scattered independent churches and individuals. Remember, preterist means “past” and so a preterist view proposes that most of the eschatological statements in the Bible refer to past events, particularly focused most often on the siege of Jerusalem in 70 AD. However, partial preterists are “partial” in that they don’t view all things as being fulfilled then. For example, the second coming is still future, the final judgment, and the revealing of new heavens and new earth. But the Full Preterist view says that those things were completed in 70 AD also. The second coming took place in 70 AD, and the final judgment happened, and this is now the new heavens and new earth, and it will continue indefinitely. Now I have placed this viewpoint partially between postmillennial and amillennial. Full Preterists tend not to refer to themselves by either term. Remember that the amillennial view is also a postmillennial view. So both views say that the second coming is after the millennium. The view of Full Preterism is that the Millennium was a 40-year period between the resurrection of Christ and 70 AD, at which point the Second Coming was fulfilled. This view is postmillennial in that the second coming is after a definite period of time that is identified as the Millennium, and looks amillennial in that there was not a literal earthly “golden age” that was brought in. Examples of those holding this belief are Max King, Tim King, Don Preston and Ed Stevens, who wrote the book “What Happened in 70 AD?”

A view similar to full preterism is Premillennial Preterism. Many Full Preterists look highly on J Stuart Russell who first proposed this view in his book “The Parousia” in 1878. As I said, full preterism sees the Millennium as a 40-year period before 70AD, and the second coming in that year. Liekwise, Premillennial Preterism says that the second coming took place in 70 AD, however, the Millennium did not end in that year, but rather began then, and continues today. So since premillennialism says that the millennium is after the second coming, this view is premillennial, and also preterist. This views is much closer to full preterism than partial preterism, but “Full preterism” is very much an all-or-nothing” thing. Since the Millennium is not in the past, this is not a full preterist view. A modern proponent of this view is Duncan McKenzie and his two-volume series on the Antichrist and the Second Coming.

Now let’s look at a new way to view this spectrum of end-times views. To the left is views that lean more and more toward “realized” eschatology. Realized, meaning that things already happened. On the right is “unrealized” eschatology, meaning that things have not yet happened. The views between then land somewhere between, an area called “inaugurated eschatology” that is often described by the phrase “already but not yet.” Inaugurated, because the eschatological kingdom of Christ is viewed as in some senses here already since Christ came to earth, but not yet because there are other aspects which are not fully present yet. This scale, by the way is not an unusual eschatology position, but rather an additional scale which contains all eschatology positions. What’s interesting though is that some today prefer to describe their eschatology position by focusing on this “scale of realization” rather than on their millennial views.

Full preterism falls to the far “realized” side of this scale, as it is a view that sees everything prophetic already fulfilled. In that sense it can be and is often called “realized eschatology.” But there is a view that is different from the standard full preterist views and yet is also a fully realized view. It’s called “Realized Eschatology.” Rather than viewing eschatological fulfillments as happening in AD 70, this view, which is often found among theological liberals, views all the prophecies being fulfilled during the ministry of Christ. C.H. Dodd brought this view to the forefront. Another proponent of the view is J.A.T Robinson and his book “Jesus and His Coming.” Robinson denied a literal resurrection of Christ. Though Dodd and Robinson taught that all prophetic fulfilment is done, Robinson took special care to emphasize the ongoing nature of things in the ongoing legacy of Christ did and the influence of his ministry and teaching in the lives of his followers today.

There is also a view that is on the opposite side of the spectrum but at the same time has many of the same ideas. This is a view that has been called “consistent eschatology” popularized by Albert Schweitzer. It is called such because those who hold to it view Christ in “consistently apocalyptic” or “consistently eschatological” ways. Like Realized Eschatology, Consistent Eschatology says that Jesus’s eschatological claims were meant by him to be understood as very imminent. Christ said that the Kingdom of God was at hand, that this generation would see His return, and so forth. This view though simply says that Jesus thought the end would be in his lifetime, and when that didn’t seem to be happening, Jesus decided his death must bring in the end, but even in this Jesus was wrong. Jesus expected an immediate end of times, but he was mistaken. This view is futurist because it still sees these eschatological claims as “not yet”, and although it is a liberal view in allowing a fallible Jesus, it still teaches Jesus as someone to follow.

Between the extremes of “it all happened” of realized eschatology” and “it all didn’t happen” of consistent eschatology” is the broader set of views found in inaugurated eschatology, which says “it’s started, but it’s not all here yet.”

Though all of idealism, for example can be viewed in some ways as being an inaugurated eschatology, there is also a specific camp of those who hold beliefs in common that call their position “inaugurated eschatology.” The person who popularized the view was George Ladd, a futurist premillennialist – but distinctively NOT a dispensationalist, and inaugurated eschatology is widely viewed as a mutually exclusive position to dispensational eschatology in particular. Inaugurated Eschatology proper views the church today as true Israel, whereas dispensationalists deny that equivalence. Others already on the chart that have claimed the “inaugurated eschatology” include Anthony Hoekema, an idealist amillennialist, and GK Beale, who lands in one place I have yet to explain – the eclectic view.

Many of the eschatology views have parts that overlap. In fact, George Ladd, who I’ve listed as a futurist actually said “Therefore, we conclude that the correct method of interpreting the revelation is a blending of the preterist and the futurist methods.”

However, some views are so mixed as to create a new category, the eclectic view, which pulls from idealism primarily, but with pieces of futurism, preterism, and sometimes historicism also. Beale wrote the book “Revelation a Shorter Commentary” and describes his view as “Eclectic Redmptive-historical idealist”, and Brian Tabb, author of all things new follow him in this. Another Eclectic view is that of Sam Stroms and his book “Kingdom Come.” All three of these authors are amillennial, and as it currently stands, the eclectic view is primarily amillennial, but not exclusively so.

Of course, there’s also the eschatology view that tends to be brought up whenever eschatology is discussed, jokingly called “panmillennialism” – where one says “I believe it will all pan out in the end.”