The Presence of the Future

The Eschatology of Biblical Realism

George Eldon Ladd

• Publisher: Eerdmans
• Year: 1996
• ISBN:
  9781467421522
• Topic: Teologia e religione
• Subtopic: Escatologia religiosa

After surveying the debate of eschatology, Ladd discusses the promise of the kingdom, the fulfillment of the promise, and the consummation of the promise. Throughout the book he develops his thesis that the kingdom of God involves two great movements--fulfillment within history and consummation at the end of history.

PART III

THE FULFILLMENT OF THE PROMISE

4 Fulfillment without Consummation

THE PROPHETIC PROMISE OF JOHN THE BAPTIST

“In those days came John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness of Judea, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand’ ” (Matt. 3:1 f.). John’s appearance found a hearty response among the Jews. Messianic movements had arisen in those days, but most of them were political in character.¹ The Qumran sect had withdrawn from Jewish society to seek new revelations of the divine will; but these revelations came not from prophets who announced, “Thus saith the Lord,” but from an inspired and therefore correct exposition of the law and the prophets. The sect looked forward to the fulfillment of Deuteronomy 18:18 when a prophet would arise who would bring fresh revelations from God. Until that time, “they shall not depart from the whole counsel of the Torah.”² The apocalyptists, pondering the prophets and brooding over the evils of current history, wrote messages of encouragement to assure the righteous that though they seemed forsaken, God would soon intervene to save them and bring the promised day of salvation.

In John the Baptist, the word of God once more was proclaimed. John appeared as a prophet in fulfillment of the prediction in Isaiah 40:3. His camel’s hair garb and leather girdle were doubtless intended to recall the dress of Elijah (II Kings 1:8). Luke asserts that “the word of God came to John … in the wilderness” (Luke 3:2). The people saw in John a new prophet (Mark 11:32) inspired by the Holy Spirit.

Here was a new thing. God had once again spoken. The prophetic Spirit was once more active in Israel. It does not require a vivid imagination to picture what excitement the appearance of John must have caused throughout Israel. The scanty notices in our Gospels hardly do justice to the impact of his appearance as a new prophet rather than as a political revolutionary or separatist or writing apocalyptist. For John revived the role of the ancient prophets. He did not claim the authority of an Old Testament saint. He did not recite apocalyptic disclosures to unravel the enigma of the plight of God’s people. He did not proclaim a sure salvation and imminent deliverance for Israel. He offered no timetable of eschatological events, and he painted no pictures of the new order. In these matters he stands apart from the apocalyptists and in line with the prophets. It is not impossible that John was for a time a member of the Qumran community “in the wilderness” (Mark 1:4); but if so, he left it because the Holy Spirit moved in him in a new way. He could no longer be satisfied with esoteric exegesis, even though the Qumran sectaries believed they were inspired of the Spirit to find the true meaning of Scripture.³

Qumran had no prophetic word directly from God, nor did it have a message for Israel as a whole. Its residents were concerned only to find the meaning of Scripture for their own separatist group. John, on the other hand, like the prophets of old, had a message directly from God for all Israel. His message consisted of the announcement that God was about to act. God would again visit his people. The Kingdom of God was at hand, and it would be inaugurated by a messianic personage who is designated only as the Coming One. It is an evidence of the historical credibility of our records that John does not call him the Messiah—a title we would expect if the historical tradition had been as completely reworked by Christian faith as many form critics believe. The main mission of the Coming One would be to separate men. The righteous he would baptize with the Spirit; the wicked he would baptize with fire (Matt. 3:11; Luke 3:16).

The integrity of John’s proclamation has often been questioned. The form of John’s reference to the baptism of the Spirit is thought to reflect the later Christian experience of Pentecost, and John’s proclamation has been interpreted as an announcement only of judgment.⁴ However, both the eschatological outpouring of the Spirit (Isa. 44:3–5; Isa. 32:15; Ezek. 37:14, 36:27; Joel 2:28–32) and the eschatological judgment with fire (Mal. 4:1; Isa. 30:27 f., 33; Nah. 1:6) are prophetic concepts, although only the latter is developed at length in the apocalyptic literature. Furthermore, this twofold character of the messianic mission is interpreted in the Q saying (Matt. 3:12 = Luke 3:17). The Coming One will purge his threshing floor, gathering the grain into the barn (salvation) but destroying the chaff with fire (judgment). The fact that the fire is “unquenchable” shows that it is an eschatological concept. If it is objected that the baptism of the Spirit in the Old Testament is not seen as a work of the Messiah,⁵ it should be pointed out that neither is judgment by fire a messianic function. Malachi, who pictures most vividly the fiery judgment, has no Messiah. Isaiah 32:1 pictures the messianic King; but he neither bestows the gift of the Spirit (32:15) nor brings a fiery judgment (30:27, 33). If John could attribute one function to the Coming One, he could also attribute the other.⁶ There is, therefore, no adequate reason for rejecting the twofold prophetic announcement of John.

Furthermore, while John speaks as a prophet announcing the fulfillment of the Old Testament promise, the content of his announcement goes a step beyond the earlier prophets in that the Coming One is the agent of the messianic salvation and judgment. In the Old Testament, the messianic King does not establish God’s rule in the world; he reigns after God has effectively set up his reign.

It is important to note that John has a dynamic concept of the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom has come near. These words, interpreted in their context, mean that God is about to act. God will visit his people for salvation and for judgment. The primary emphasis of John’s proclamation is not upon the approach of the messianic age nor on the age to come. In fact, John offers no picture of the state of things to be introduced by Messiah. The Kingdom is rather the act of God which will bring judgment upon the present order. The divine act has a negative as well as a positive aspect; the Kingdom of God means both salvation and judgment.

John offered no timetable of the eschatological events. He gave no indication of the relationship of these two messianic acts of the Coming One. His message may be paraphrased thus: “The Kingdom of God is at hand, God is about to visit his people. This divine visitation will be accomplished by a Coming One who will be the agent of the eschatological salvation and judgment.” It appears that John expected this twofold messianic work to take place in a single eschatological event. We shall see later that John himself failed to understand how Jesus fulfilled this prophecy. (See pp. 158 ff.) From prison, John sent emissaries with the question whether Jesus was indeed the Coming One or whether another was to be expected who would actually carry out the eschatological salvation (Matt. 11:2–3). John believed that the eschatological salvation and judgment would take place in the near future, even though in typical prophetic fashion he provided no calendar by which these events could be calculated.⁷

John stands apart from contemporary Jewish teachers by his ethical concern. The coming Kingdom is the coming supernatural event; yet it is profoundly ethical in character. Judaism believed that the Kingdom of God would bring salvation to Israel and judgment to her enemies. “For the Most High will arise, the Eternal God alone, and He will appear to punish the Gentiles.… Then thou, O Israel, shalt be happy, And thou shalt mount upon the necks and wings of the eagle.… And God will exalt thee” (Asmp. of Moses 10:7–9).⁸ In a few places (En. 50:1–3; 90:30; 91:14) salvation is extended to Gentiles who repent; but this is rare. More typical is the word, “I will rejoice over the few [Israelites] that shall be saved.… And I will not grieve over the multitude of them [Gentiles] that perish” (IV Ezra 7:61 f.). The Qumran community believed that they alone would inherit the Kingdom of God and would be enabled by the reinforcement of embattled angels to destroy all their enemies, including the apostate Jews, in a final eschatological war.⁹ John announced that the coming of God’s Kingdom means that judgment must begin at the house of God. He flatly rejected Jewish particularism and the ethical passivism which had so often characterized the apocalyptic writings. Jewish ancestry was no guarantee of salvation. Rigid adherence to the scribal tradition assured nothing. John demanded repentance, not in the Jewish sense of accepting the yoke of the law, but in an ethical sense: an acknowledgment of sinfulness and changed conduct. Evidence of such repentance was baptism in water. The source of this rite is a much debated question;¹⁰ but the most likely solution is that John deliberately adapted Jewish proselyte baptism, thereby saying in effect that Jews stood on the same level with the Gentiles in view of the coming messianic visitation.¹¹ The Jew had no advantage; he must experience personal repentance as though he were no son of Abraham.

THE FULFILLMENT IN JESUS

“Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of God, and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent, and believe in the gospel!” (Mark 1:14, 15.) Mathew’s report is even more concise, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”¹²

Our Gospels summarize the preaching of the Baptist and of Jesus in the same words: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matt. 3:2; 4:17). It would be easy to conclude that their message was essentially the same: the proclamation of an imminent eschatological event, the immediate fulfillment of the apocalyptic hope of the visitation of God to inaugurate the Kingdom of God in the age to come.

However similar the wording may be, modern scholarship acknowledges a fundamental difference between the two messages. As we have already seen, Günther Bornkamm recognizes that between John and Jesus “there is a difference like that between the eleventh and twelfth hours. For Jesus calls: the shift in the aeons is here, the kingdom of God is already dawning.… It is happening now in Jesus’ words and deeds.”¹³ Such a conclusion is not to be determined from the terminology alone but from a study of its meaning against the total message and mission of Jesus.

The difference between John and Jesus is suggested by Mark’s formulation which interprets Jesus’ message to mean that “the time is fulfilled” (Mark 1:15). Jesus did not merely proclaim, as did John, the imminence of divine visitation; he asserted that this visitation was in actual progress, that God was already visiting his people. The hope of the prophets was being fulfilled.

This note of fulfillment is the truly distinctive element in Jesus’ message which sets him apart from Judaism. It occurs again and again in the Gospels. Luke introduces Jesus’ ministry by recording his sermon in Nazareth whose main theme is fulfillment. Jesus read from Isaiah a promise which looked forward to the messianic salvation. “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord” (Luke 4:18–19). Then he amazed his audience by the assertion, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing” (Luke 4:21).

Here was an amazing claim. John had announced an imminent visitation of God which would mean the fulfillment of the eschatological hope and the coming of the messianic age. Jesus proclaimed that this promise was actually being fulfilled. This is no apocalyptic Kingdom but a present salvation. Jesus did not promise his hearers a better future or assure that they would soon enter the Kingdom. Rather he boldly announced that the Kingdom (Herrschaft) of God had come to them. The presence of the Kingdom was “a ...