Last Things First

Living In The Light Of The Future

Graham Beynon

• Publisher: IVP
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9781844744121
• eBook ISBN: 9781844747559
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christianity

Why think about the future? After all, 'what will happen will happen', it only leads to controversy and argument, and itâ?Ts irrelevant to life now.
However, Graham Beynon shows that the real danger is that we don't think about the future. God in his Word puts last things first - the whole gospel is shaped around what is to come. God has a plan for where he is taking this world, and his people are called to live in the light of that future.
Christians are to be those who look back - to the life, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus. All that happened then shapes our life now. However, they are also to look forward â?" at what God will do in finishing his plans for his creation through Jesus.
The Bible teaches Christians to store up treasure in heaven; to wait faithfully for the return of their Master; to think of this world as temporary and passing; and to think of the world to come as their inheritance.
Graham Beynon takes a fresh look at this teaching and shows how what is to come should shape practical Christian living now, with regard to godliness, handling of money, service of others, speaking about Jesus, faithfulness to him, response to hardship, and more.

1. THE DAY OF THE LORD

Sometimes I find myself sitting in our kitchen enjoying a coffee while my kids are playing next door in the lounge. Occasionally an argument breaks out and I call through some instructions, telling one of them to say sorry, or another one to share. Things go quiet for a while longer, but then accusations are made and tempers flare. I call through more commands, trying to preserve my time with my coffee. But as things kick off again, I finally get up, walk into the lounge and say, ‘Right. Let’s sort this out.’

What happens then? I investigate what’s been happening and I bring my rule to bear! That might involve punishing one child, or it might involve rewarding another. But now I am personally present, intervening and bringing justice (at least as best as I can). In biblical terminology that would be called ‘the Day of Daddy’.

I say that because it illustrates ‘the Day of the Lord’. That day is the moment when God steps into a situation to bring his rule to bear – a time when he isn’t simply sending ­instructions, but is personally present to intervene.

When compared to God, of course, what is bad about my illustration is that it’s far too trivial. The day God steps in is consistently called a ‘great and dreadful’ day. It is referred to as a day of doom, a day of wrath, as well as a day of salvation. It is the day when God steps in personally and brings justice; the day when he punishes; the day when he rescues and vindicates.

In this chapter we’re going to look at the big picture on the future using this idea of the Day of the Lord. What we’ll see is how in the Old Testament there was a growing expectation and understanding of what God would do on that great day. We’ll move on to see how that is fulfilled by Jesus, but also that we still wait for the final day to come.

The ‘end’ according to the Old Testament

I’ve already said that the ‘Day of the Lord’ is the day when God turns up to sort things out. In reading the Old Testament we need to be aware that this phrase is sometimes used to speak about events that have already happened – for example, the judgment God brings when he sends his people into exile is called ‘the day of the LORD’ (Amos 5:18). But there was also the expectation of a final day, a climactic day. So what will happen on that final Day of the Lord?

God’s kingdom will come

God is the king of this world. This is his creation and he is the true king of it. That is a basic truth in the Old Testament. But it is also recognized that God’s rule is not seen in the world now. People have rebelled against God and rejected his rule over them. God is king, but his kingship is denied. And so God has promised that one day he will bring his kingdom, where he will reign.

In Zechariah 14 there is a description of the Day of the Lord, and it includes the statement:

The LORD will be king over the whole earth. On that day there will be one LORD, and his name the only name.

(Zechariah 14:9)

God will be seen to be king and he will rule. His kingdom will extend over the whole world. There’s a very similar idea in these verses:

By myself I have sworn,
my mouth has uttered in all integrity
a word that will not be revoked:

Before me every knee will bow;
by me every tongue will swear.

(Isaiah 45:23)

God has promised that every knee will bow before him as king and every tongue acknowledge his rule. This is, of course, only what should be the case: this is God’s world, he is the king and everyone who has ever lived, everyone you’ve ever known, should bow before God. We don’t do that now because of our rebellion – but God won’t allow a rebellious world to rebel for ever.

God’s Saviour King will come

Linked with the coming of God’s kingdom is a promise and expectation of God’s Saviour King. One of the famous passages we read at Christmas is from Isaiah and it talks about a child to be born who will be a ruler:

Of the increase of his government and peace
there will be no end.

He will reign on David’s throne
and over his kingdom,

establishing and upholding it
with justice and righteousness
from that time on and forever.

(Isaiah 9:7)

David was the great king in the Old Testament, but this verse and others promise that a greater version of David will come. In the light of the rebellion of the world in Psalm 2, for example, God responds by installing his king and the king says:

I will proclaim the LORD’s decree:

He said to me, ‘You are my son;
today I have become your father.

Ask me,
and I will make the nations your inheritance,
the ends of the earth your possession.

You will break them with a rod of iron;
you will dash them to pieces like pottery.’

(Psalm 2:7–9)

God has promised his king that he will rule the nations. This king is the person who is also called the ‘Messiah’. That term simply means the one ‘anointed’ by God – he is anointed to rule on his behalf. He is the one who will bring God’s rule and save God’s people. That’s why I’ve called him God’s ‘Saviour King’.

People will be judged

Also linked with God’s kingdom coming is the idea of judgment. The ideas are linked because when God’s kingdom comes, God’s rule is brought over people and that involves judgment for their rebellion. God has promised consistently that he will set every injustice straight and judge all evil. Consider the following verses:

He will judge the world in righteousness
and the peoples in his faithfulness.

(Psalm 96:13)

The LORD reigns forever;
he has established his throne for judgment.

He rules the world in righteousness
and judges the peoples with equity.

(Psalm 9:7–8)

People escape human justice all the time – whether that’s the horrors of history like Auschwitz or Rwanda, or a miscarriage of justice in a local court that never makes the newspapers, or the lies told to a spouse that no-one ever finds out about. Everyone will be judged for everything they have done. And God’s judgment will be right and true.

We must say that it is good that justice comes. Without such a day we are left with ‘might is right’; we are left with no answers to the injustice of this world. The Day of the Lord is the day of justice, because on that day everyone will have to give an account to God for how they’ve lived in God’s world.

There will be a new covenant

The covenant was the promises God made to his people – the most basic covenant promise was that we would live in relationship with God as our God (Genesis 17:7; Exodus 6:7). But the problem with this in the Old Testament is that people consistently and repeatedly turn away from God. They end up not being his people any more because of their rebellion against him. But rather than forgetting his plan to have people who belong to him, God responds by promising a new covenant. Here’s the crucial passage from Jeremiah:

‘The days are coming,’ declares the LORD,
‘when I will make a new covenant

with the house of Israel
and with the house of Judah.

It will not be like the covenant
I made with their ancestors

when I took them by the hand
to lead them out of Egypt,

because they broke my covenant,
though I was a husband to them,’ declares the LORD.

‘This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel
after that time,’ declares the LORD.

‘I will put my law in their minds
and write it on their hearts.

I will be their God,
and they will be my people.’

(Jeremiah 31:31–33)

Notice that the new covenant is to overcome the problems with the old covenant. Not that there was anything wrong with the old covenant itself; the problem was with the people turning away from God. But in the new covenant God will work in people’s hearts so that they will obey his law and remain his people.

There’s a similar promise in Ezekiel which links this new work of God with the Holy Spirit:

I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.

(Ezekiel 36:25–27)

Notice again that the work of the Spirit is so that people will trust and obey God – he will give them this heart that will follow him. This links with other promises about the Spirit working in the future, like this one from Joel:

And afterward,
I will pour out my Spirit on all people.

Your sons and daughters will prophesy,
your old men will dream dreams,
your young men will see visions.

Even on my servants, both men and women,
I will pour out my Spirit in those days.

(Joel 2:28–29)

This meant people were looking forward to the new ­covenant coming and the age of the Spirit arriving.

Creation will be renewed

The biblical view is that creation was originally made very good, but it then came under God’s curse because of our rebellion (see Genesis 1 – 3). So the world as we know it is not how it was supposed to be. It wasn’t designed to have illness or tragedy or disasters. It wasn’t supposed to involve pain and tears. It wasn’t supposed to include death. And God says that one day, all this will go.

We read promises like these:

See, I will create
new heavens and a new earth.

The former things will not be remembered,
nor will they come to mind.

(Isaiah 65:17)

This passage goes on to speak of how people will enjoy ridiculously long life (which is a poetic way of saying that they will not die), and how they will enjoy life in a perfect creation. Other passages in Isaiah speak about the harmony of the new creation, like this one from Isaiah 11:

The wolf will live with the lamb,
the leopard will lie down with the goat,

the calf and the lion and the yearling together;
and a little child will lead them.

The cow will feed with the bear,
their young will lie down together,
and the lion will eat straw like the ox.

Infants will play near the hole of the cobra;
young children will put their hands into the viper’s nest.

They will neither harm nor destroy
on all my holy mountain,

for the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the LORD
as the waters cover the sea.

(Isaiah 11:6–9)

What a wonderful picture of a perfect creation! Notice, though, that this isn’t simply an idyllic picture of a harmonious creation, but one where God is centre stage. The last phrase is the climax and explanation: creation will be perfected because the world will be covered with the knowledge of God. This passage is also explicitly linked with the coming of God’s Saviour King (see the rest of Isaiah 11).

Waiting for the Day of the Lord

The different ideas we’ve looked at are summarized in the diagram below. I should say that not all of these ideas are mentioned explicitly in connection with ‘the Day of the Lord’, but most of them are. All of these are what will happen when God steps into history.

As a result of these ideas, the Old Testament believer would have lived in hope – looking forward to the Day of the Lord. The following chapters of this book will look at these different elements more carefully, but before we do that, we need to continue sketching the big picture of how this is all fulfilled in Jesus.

The Day of the Lord has come – or has it?

Let’s start with Jesus’ teaching. Given the Old Testament background we’ve just covered, think how incredible Jesus’ opening words are:

The time has come...The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!

(Mark 1:15)

Jesus is saying that the time for waiting is over, the Day of the Lord is here, the kingdom is coming. No wonder people were excited! Jesus says more on this – he claims that prophets and righteous people in the Old Testament longed to see what his disciples are seeing in his life and ministry (Matthew 13:17). Jesus says that people should realize the kingdom of God has come with all that he is doing (Luke 11:20). He says that he is the promised Messiah, the one through whom God will restore his world (Luke 7:18–23).

So it appears that Jesus thinks the Day of the Lord has come.

But Jesus also looks forward to a day in the future when he returns. He speaks, for example, about ‘the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne’ (Matthew 19:28). The word Jesus uses there for ‘renewal’ means rebirth: he is talking about the re-creation of all things.

He also speaks about the kingdom coming in two ways. We see this especially in some of his kingdom parables (for example in Mark 4). These usually involve sowing a seed that then grows and at some later point comes the harvest. So Jesus says the kingdom is coming now in his ministry through the message he spreads – that is the seed being sown (Mark 4:14), but the harvest is at some point in the future. The Day of the Lord has come in that the kingdom has arrived in some sense; and yet it hasn’t come in that it still awaits final completion.

So, according to Jesus, the Day of the Lord has come now but is not yet.

We see the same th...

Table of contents

• Last Things First
• Contents
• PREFACE
• INTRODUCTION: WHY READ A BOOK ON THE FUTURE?
• 1. THE DAY OF THE LORD
• 2. JUDGMENT DAY
• 3. REAL REWARDS
• 4. I MAKE ALL THINGS NEW
• 5. AWAY FROM ME
• 6. FACING DEATH AND LIVING LIFE
• 7. SIGNS OF THE TIMES
• 8. WILL IT EVER COME?
• 9. LIVING IN HOPE
• APPENDIX: THE RAPTURE, THE MILLENNIUM AND THE ANTICHRIST
• FURTHER READING