Jesus Wins

The Good News of the End Times

Dayton Hartman

• Publisher: Lexham Press
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781683591313
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Theology

Reclaiming our common hope. Too often discussions about the End Times are fraught with wild speculation or discord. But a biblical view of eschatology places Jesus' return and victory at the center. All Christians hold this hope in common.In Jesus Wins, Dayton Hartman focuses on this common ground to reveal why the way we think about the End Times matters. Christian eschatology should be rooted in biblical orthodoxy to inspire hope and greater faithfulness in the present age. That's the point of eschatology after all! Drawing from his own ministry experience, Hartman testifies to the unifying power of Jesus' victory.

CHAPTER 1

SCARED YET?

REVELATION 22:12–13

Behold, I am coming soon, bringing my recompense with me, to repay each one for what he has done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.

“No passion so effectively robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear.”

—Edmund Burke

Clang! I hid my face in horror as the blade of a guillotine fell.

Watching an off-camera beheading isn’t exactly ideal pre-bedtime television for a child, but it was the 1980s—no bike helmets, searing hot metal playground slides, seatbelt-free station wagons. In short, a grim execution scene in a Christian movie—A Thief in the Night—was the least of my worries as a kid. Still, I was six years old, and I desperately wanted to escape the coming tribulation.

I was consumed with fear over the impending return of Christ.

As a child I was aware of the ever-increasing speculation about the end of the world and the return of Christ. Hal Lindsey’s books were on my parents’ bookshelves. Pat Robertson and Jack Van Impe dominated Christian television. And every day someone new was proposing something new about the second coming—or rapture, depending on their theological commitments—whether Edgar Whisenant’s 88 Reasons Why the Rapture Will Be in 1988 or Harold Camping’s massive book 1994?. The good news for Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins was that both Whisenant and Camping were wrong. In 1995, their brand-new series, Left Behind, premiered with fanfare. The series has sold an estimated 65–75 million copies.

Harold Camping wasn’t the only infamous leader involved in speculation and prophecy in the 1990s. The Christian world seemed to be consumed with thoughts of the end. The Y2K bug didn’t help matters. Had Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft, hardwired his computer systems to trigger the rise of a global dictator and the collapse of every government? Surely the end is here! Even The Los Angeles Times covered the fever pitch of prophecy in 1999.1

A THIEF IN THE NIGHT was a four-part movie series released between 1972 and 1983. These movies attempted to portray the presumed perils during the seven-year tribulation period central to dispensational eschatology. HAROLD CAMPING (1921–2013) was the president of Family Radio. He tried to identify specific dates for the return of Christ and destruction of the world—twice: September 6, 1994, and May 21, 2011. After his prophecy failed to materialize, Camping issued a statement repenting of setting dates for Christ’s return.

The year 2000 arrived, and nothing happened. Bill Gates and the devil were not in cahoots to bring down the governments of the world. Maybe prophetic speculation would wane with the dawn of the new millennium. I mean, a self-professed evangelical was in the White House, so the end was still far off, right?

Everything changed on September 11, 2001. Once again, talk of the end dominated in American Christianity.

SPECULATION FADS

I used to manage a Christian bookstore—so I witnessed firsthand the fervor that came with any new book theorizing about the end of the world. I saw prophetic fads come and go. For a time, the Left Behind series was being answered by another fictional series from a partial-preterist perspective. The former host of the Bible Answer Man radio program, Hank Hanegraaff (1950–present), cowrote The Last Disciple series as a fictional narrative exploring the eschatological position from Hanegraaff’s nonfiction book The Apocalypse Code.

After many publishing cycles of books filled with end-times speculation, two things remained consistent: First, speculators will always speculate. Second, when we prioritize prophetic speculation, we forget our mission and abandon the hope that Christian eschatology gives the church.2 If you want to see Christians fight, bring up the end of the world.3

Once someone in our membership class asked me for our church’s official position on the end times. I told him: “Our official position is that Jesus wins. We are free to disagree on the details of the timing and particulars of his victory, but he does win and that’s what unites us in hope.”

The man was frustrated. He told me that he loved our church, our approach to ministry, and our mission and vision, but he would have to find another church. That family left our fellowship more than two years ago—and to the best of my knowledge, they are still searching for a church to join. Later, the man told me how weary they were of the search. But they could not find a pastor with whom they agreed 100 percent on eschatological matters.

PARTIAL PRETERISM proposes that the majority of the prophecies described in Revelation were fulfilled in the events leading up to the destruction of the Jerusalem temple in AD 70. All that remains in the future are the final three chapters of Revelation. HANK HANEGRAAFF (b. 1950) was the longtime host of the Bible Answer Man radio program until his conversion to Greek Orthodoxy in 2017. In response to Left Behind, Hanegraaff penned his novel The Last Disciple. This novel follows the partial-preterist understanding of prophecy wherein the events of the book of Revelation are largely fulfilled in the destruction of the temple complex in AD 70. HAL LINDSEY (b. 1929) authored the book The Late Great Planet Earth. The New York Times dubbed it the best-selling nonfiction book of the 1970s. The book has sold tens of millions of copies. It continues to be influential among some Christians. PAT ROBERTSON (b. 1930) is the longtime host of The 700 Club television program and chairman of the Christian Broadcasting Network. The 1988 presidential hopeful interprets current news in light of his particular brand of prophecy. JACK VAN IMPE (b. 1931) is the host of a weekly prophetic news program titled Jack Van Impe Presents. In each episode, he tries to connect contemporary events to Bible prophecies.

Ironic, isn’t it? By attempting to hold the line on what he believes is the biblical position on eschatology, he is eschewing the clear biblical mandate to be in community with other believers under the authority of biblically qualified elders. When we make secondary issues (like the timing and precise details of the end of days) primary issues, we make primary issues (such as church membership and fellowship with the saints) into secondary issues.

The position we have taken as a church is that believers are free to disagree about eschatological matters. Our congregation is made up of intelligent individuals who hold to historic premillennialism, dispensational premillennialism, amillennialism, and even some who lean postmillennial. Whether you are aware of it or not, your own beliefs are likely tied to one of these schools of interpretation. Good news! All of them are orthodox!

SPECULATION DEFERRED

How did I arrive at a “Jesus wins” eschatology? By reading church history. The Christian world—across time and place—is filled with rich theological traditions. The early church fathers navigated questions about persecution, church and state relationships, and authority, among others.4 They weren’t as concerned with wild-eyed theories as the average conspiracy-theory-loving American. And so it’s little surprise that we have few early church texts on the end times. They had bigger problems. The church has generally allowed a variety of eschatological views (ruled by the Bible).

TIM LAHAYE (1926–2016) was a prolific writer and politically influential evangelical, best known for his Left Behind series. He worked closely with the leadership of the 1980s movement known as the Moral Majority. While LaHaye provided the theological framework for the Left Behind series, seasoned novelist JERRY JENKINS (b. 1949) crafted LaHaye’s theology into marketable works of fiction. CLARIFYING TERMS: Many associate eschatology with a study of last things or the end times, but it more accurately describes Christian beliefs about the consummation of all things, the restoration of the created order, and eternity future.

I’m saddened by how often eschatological speculation derails the mission Jesus gave us: to make disciples. In fact, after more than a decade of ministry in the local church and teaching in seminaries and Christian colleges, I’ve yet to identify a single benefit from speculating about eschatology.

My original intention for this introduction was to list the dangers of speculation. But the list is neverending—and I’ve spent months on it! Every few days I think of another danger. Suffice it to just say: there is not a single benefit to eschatological speculation. None. Zero.

Speculation deemphasizes Jesus and leads to fear (which often leads to poor decision making). When we spend our days conjecturing about what may or may not happen before the second coming, we do so at the expense of the overwhelming hope that the second coming ought to give us.

By closely reading Scripture and church history, I’ve become convinced that a better way forward is to return to the eschatology of the Apostles’ Creed. One of the oldest confessions of our faith, the creed simply states:

I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord.

He was conceived by the Holy Spirit

and born of the virgin Mary.

He suffered under Pontius Pilate,

was crucified, died, and was buried....