Eschatology

John C. McDowell, Scott A. Kirkland

• Publisher: Eerdmans
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9780802864581
• eBook ISBN: 9781467451420
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Theology

This short textbook, the latest volume in the Guides to Theology series, surveys key themes and aspects of Christian hope by tracing eschatological ideas as they have developed from Scripture throughout the history of theology.

John McDowell and Scott Kirkland present a series of lenses on understanding eschatological statements, or the content of Christian hope. They have structured their book thematically into five chapters—four exploring apocalyptic, existential, political, and christological themes, followed by an extensive annotated bibliography. Within each chapter, McDowell and Kirkland take a history-of-ideas approach, locating the various perspectives in their historical contexts. Concise and accessible, this book is ideal for introductory undergraduate courses in eschatology.

1. Apocalyptic

Apocalyptic, the first of Karl Rahner’s approaches, is notoriously difficult to define. Popularly, when we think of apocalyptic we might think of the current resurgence of zombie films and dystopian science fiction such as World War Z or Children of Men. We may think back to that most evocative use of apocalyptic images in times of war in Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now. Or, indeed, we may think of the predictions of Hal Lindsey’s The Late Great Planet Earth and Tim LaHaye’s Left Behind novels. All of these texts draw in one way or another upon a set of ancient traditions that proclaim extravagant visions, dreams, predictions, and political critique.

Apocalypsis means “unveiling,” peeling back appearances and seeing things as they really are. The fabulous and strange ancient texts that claim to do this, however, have a complicated history of interpretation and use. Different philosophical, theological, and historical pressures send readers of these texts in differing directions. Apocalyptic images are flexible, and they have been the instrument of church reform, political critique, quietism, speculation regarding the future, and nationalism. In particular, two different kinds of approaches to the book of Revelation bear themselves out throughout history. The first, decoding, is concerned with mapping history onto apocalyptic timelines. The second, actualizing, is interested in the constant reappropriation of apocalyptic images in differing circumstances. Each of these types will emerge under varying contextual circumstances.

New Testament Apocalyptic

Gospels

While apocalyptic is a specific genre in Hebrew literature, it is valuable to draw our attention briefly to the similarities in patterns and expectations surrounding Jesus in the Gospel narratives. Of particular interest are the immediate social and political expectations surrounding Christ’s coming. This is evident in the Gospel of Luke, who is deliberate in his marking of historical events. He opens his text by noting that these events are taking place under Herod (Luke 1:5), a man despised by many for cozying up to the oppressive Romans. This is “more than a vague chronological marker, but locates the events in a particular period of political tension.”¹ The prophecy of Gabriel (Luke 1:32) that Jesus will be the new king in the line of David positions the events of the Gospels in the midst of real social-historical tensions as Herod’s legitimacy is questioned by this child. In Luke’s version of the Magnificat, Mary praises God’s reversals of the hierarchical social order:

He has shown strength with his arm;

he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.

He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,

and lifted up the lowly;

he has filled the hungry with good things,

and sent the rich away empty. (Luke 1:51–53)

The Magnificat draws an immediate link between Jesus who is to come and a radically new social order. This is amplified by the way in which it echoes Hannah’s song (1 Sam. 2), which anticipates the coming of the judge, Samuel. There is a further immediate sign of hope in Elizabeth, who is pregnant with John the Baptist after being barren her whole life (Luke 1:7). Right at the start of Luke’s Gospel it becomes evident that God is ushering in abrupt and radical change: lifting the lowly, filling the hungry, etc.

As the Gospel continues, tensions grow between the established political power and the alternate order of John the Baptist and Jesus, and apocalyptic imagery follows. John the Baptist proclaims to the crowds, “Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire” (Luke 3:9). As Jesus is baptized in the Jordan and proclaimed as God’s Son, the heavens are torn open and a dove descends. “This scene is set in the world of apocalyptic with its emphasis on the unveiling of divine mystery. The opening of heaven is familiar from apocalyptic literature, as is the heavenly voice.”² The significance of this is that we are given a glimpse into the invisible order that is God’s true ordering of things. Throughout the Gospel, this tension remains between the invisible and real power of Jesus and the visible and false power of the authorities. This is the heart of apocalyptic tension.

The most explicit apocalyptic scene in the Gospel narratives is that which both Luke and Matthew adapt from Mark 13, the Olivet discourse. Here Jesus foretells the destruction of the temple (Mark 13:1–2), which later occurred historically when the Romans tore it down in 70 CE. In this scene Jesus offers a series of signs, culminating in the coming of the Son of Man in the clouds, an image from Daniel 7:13–14. Many interpret the signs as entirely bound up with the destruction of the temple. Others see the text as a prophecy of future historical events.³ It is important to note Mark’s positioning of the discourse between the end of Jesus’s public ministry (Mark 1–12) and the beginning of the events leading to his condemnation, death, and resurrection (Mark 14–16). This is significant because of the recurring reference to the destruction of the temple in the context of Jesus’s trial, which “points to the relationship which exists between the judgement upon Jerusalem implied by the discourse and the death of Jesus.”⁴ Speaking to a specific community facing pressure from Roman authorities, to whom prophecies of a far-off future were of little value, “Mark cautions his readers that the community is to find its authentic eschatological dimension not in apocalyptic fervor but in obedience to Jesus’ call to cross-bearing and evangelism in the confidence that this is the will of God which must be fulfilled before the parousia.”⁵

Revelation

The book of Revelation represents the most sustained and explicit version of Jewish apocalyptic in the New Testament. It is from this book that such ideas as “Armageddon,” the “tribulation,” and the “millennium” come. It has therefore been at the center of much interpretative debate, particularly since the development of dispensationalism (discussed later in this chapter). Interpretations of Revelation range from the historical reconstructions of Hal Lindsey, which turn John’s prophecy into a roadmap of the end of the world, to those who see the text as purely a piece of politically seditious and coded literature wholly bound up with the concerns of the late first century.⁶

Revelation can be reasonably comfortably positioned in the family of Jewish apocalyptic literature. It shares much of its “angelology and preoccupation with the hidden” with texts such as 1 Enoch, Daniel, and 4 Ezra.⁷ However, there are distinguishing features owing to the text’s preoccupation with the Christian narratives and its distinctive historical location. This can be seen in the way Daniel is habilitated by Revelation. While the two texts are remarkably similar at points in their use of the image of the Son of Man (Dan. 7:13–14; Rev. 1:13) and the spectacular visions of beasts (Dan. 4:1–27; 7:1–8; Rev. 13), there are also marked differences. The author of Daniel remains unknown throughout the text, whereas John identifies himself (Rev. 1:1); the visions in Daniel are followed by interpretations, whereas this device is used only infrequently in Revelation; Daniel often sheds positive light upon the empire through the obedience of rulers, whereas Revelation is much more skeptical of imperial authority.⁸ There is a much sharper line between Babylon (Rome) and God in Revelation than in Daniel, where the figure of Daniel himself serves in the courts of the rulers and garners their favor. This reflects differing political circumstances, particularly given Rome’s destruction of the Jerusalem temple and the growing numbers of gentile Christian converts, alongside the expectation among early Christian communities that Jesus would return imminently.

Judith Kovacs and Christopher Rowland helpfully distinguish between “decoding” and “actualization” as modes of interpreting Revelation. Decoding “involves presenting the meaning of the text in another, less allusive form, showing what the text really means, with great attention to the details.” Actualizing “means reading the Apocalypse in relation to new circumstances, seeking to convey the spirit of the text rather than being concerned with the plethora of detail. Such interpretation tends to regard the text as multivalent, having more than one meaning.”⁹

This broad distinction helps us to think about both the way we interpret the significance of the images used in relation to future or past events and, alternatively, their symbolic significance. For example, if we are intent upon decoding the text, we are going to be interested in locating precise historical events that line up with the events in the text. For example, Hal Lindsey “sees in Rev. 9 a description of an all-out attack of ballistic missiles on the cities of the world.”¹⁰ This means that there are both events in Revelation that have been fulfilled in some past circumstance and events that remain to be fulfilled in some person or circumstance. If, on the other hand, we adopt an actualizing interpretation, this could take one of two forms. First, we might be inclined to reappropriate the imagery of Revelation to fit our own circumstances. So, for instance, the figure of the beast (Rev. 13) might not be one monstrous figure to appear at the culmination of a long history of tribulation (as we shall see in dispensationalism), but rather a type that can recur again and again. Second, “there is the appropriation by visionaries, where the words of the Apocalypse either offer the opportunity to ‘see again’ things similar to what had appeared to John or prompt new visions related to it.”¹¹ Neither of these forms of actualization is interested in treating Revelation as a timeline of world history; rather, they see it as a resource for rethinking the position of the believer again and again relative to political and cosmic location. This later actualizing type of interpretation is the most dominant in the history of interpretation.

Both in the Gospels’ use of apocalyptic and in Revelation we can see immediate political and social realities in reference to which the texts are to be read. Beginning in the late Middle Ages and in the Reformation, a form of futurist apocalyptic emerged that began to be more concerned with timelines for world history and divine action. This, in turn, affected the ways in which New Testament apocalyptic was read.

Medieval Apocalypticism

The fount of western medieval theology, Augustine of Hippo, was decidedly uninterested in speculation concerning the end of the world, and he remained ambivalent to speculation regarding the millennium, as did many of the later fathers. Augustine’s sensibility carried a great deal of weight in the early Middle Ages. However, come the tenth century, the apocalyptic heat began to be turned up again with the coming “terror of the year 1000.” As the end of the millennium approached, speculation regarding the return of Christ emerged with renewed vigor. The obvious reason for this was that the year 1000 marked a millennium since Christ’s birth.

Despite the ambivalence of the church fathers regarding the end of the world, there was a continued fascination with apocalyptic imagery throughout the early Middle Ages, evidenced in ongoing images and legends such as the legend of the Last Roman Emperor. After the destabilization of the western empire through various raids on Rome and the emergence of Islam as a threat to Roman provinces in the eighth and ninth centuries, a myth arose in the Eastern Empire that there would come a time when a final emperor would emerge who would destroy all opponents of Christianity, restore Christian preeminence and peace, and finally step down from power, allowing for the time of the Antichrist. This mixture of Roman and Christian mythology was characteristic of the period. This illustrates the fact that the second millennium of Christian thought was an environment radically different from that faced by the first Christian apocalypse, Revelation. As a consequence of the Christianization of imperial power, one of the big questions facing the church was how to appropriately reform or renew itself so as to avoid manifest corruption here and now. Often we think of the European Middle Ages as a single, continuous period of Christian hegemony. However, this is to do a disservice to the multiplicity of movements for change that emerged in the period. One such tactic for change was the deployment of apocalyptic imagery. As we shall see, in this sense the Protestant reformers were very much in continuity with something internal to the Christian tradition, the ability to develop modes of self-criticism.

Gregorian Reform

One such early catalyst for reform occurred in the eleventh century, the Great Reform associated with Pope Gregory VII, or Hildebrand (1073–1085). In spite of the differences between the book of Revelation and medieval apocalyptic, one element is particularly pertinent as far as the Great Reform is concerned: Gregory seems to have been motivated by the possibility of an imminent return of Christ. He wrote, “For the nearer the day of the Antichrist approaches, the harder he fights to crush out the Christian faith.”¹²

Gregory set about a deliberate process of institutional reform, explicitly in anticipation of the last days. The nearer the day of the Antichrist, the more intense the pressures would become. Gregory “and the circle of reformers around him began as monastic reformers, and there was a strong monastic flavour to their attempts to realise the true ‘order’ (ordo) of Christian freedom in the world.”¹³ Throughout the Middle Ages monastic movements were crucial to the church’s ability to maintain ...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1. Apocalyptic
• 2. Existential
• 3. Political
• 4. Christological
• Conclusion
• Annotated Bibliography
• Index