Southern Baptists and the Last Things
— Friday, May 1st, 2009 —
The Southern Baptist Texan newspaper has an interesting series of articles on eschatological positions in Southern Baptist life. The articles take up the question of whether eschatology is dimming as an interest among college-age evangelicals. I think emphatically not, and the only reason one would conclude such is if one defines “eschatology” as the kind of pop-apocalypticism of the 1970s and 1980s (resurgent in the Left Behind series of more recent years).
But eschatology is about much more than that. And, in the last generation, the weightier matters of biblical eschatology were often tossed aside (new creation, the resurrection of the flesh, etc.) in favor of straining at the relative trivia of novel tribulational views and speculation about the identity of the antichrist.
The articles also ask whether tribulational or millennial views ought to be matters of confessional accountability at colleges or seminaries. I think not. Future judgment, bodily resurrection, new heavens and new earth, the reality of hell, and other clear eschatological matters, as laid out in the historic creeds, ought to be matters of confessional consensus. The interpretation of Revelation 20 has been a matter of dispute in the church since, quite literally, the generation after the apostles. And, of course, the “tribulational” question has had no such history of controversy since the debate didn’t start until, relatively speaking in the long history of the church, the day before yesterday.
The articles can be found here, here, and here. Read them and let me know what you think. What should we be willing to divide up over on eschatological matters, and where can we work together as we disagree?
I thought the articles were very well done. I agree with you that we should not codify in our confessional tradition (whether denominationally or in particular schools) specific views on the rapture, millenialism, the future of national Israel, etc. I think the articles do a good job of showing that we presently enjoy a degree of diversity at our seminaries, a diversity that is likely also represented in our churches. I also think Dr. Patterson’s 12 points of a agreement is a great contribution to our cooperation in these matters.
But I confess I am worried that too many younger Southern Baptists seem to be indifferent to eschatology. I suspect this is because they simplistically equate “last things” with “rapture wars,” and they don’t care much for the latter. I sense this among some of my students and even my generational peers in ministry.
As for me, I’m still motivated in my ministry by the truth that, “when we all see Jesus, we’ll sing and shout the victory.” What a day that will be!
NAF
Adrio Koenig once wrote, “Jesus Christ occupies a central place. If the gospel is about him, so too is its message about the end. If he is the one around whom the whole New Testament revolves, then he is the one, too, around whom God’s plans for the world revolve. Indeed, the criterion for any book on eschatology should be: what place do the person and message of Jesus Christ have in it?” (The Eclipse of Christ in Eschatology, 1)
Koenig’s focus has always struck me as proper. We must begin, continue, and end with Jesus Christ, for the protos and the eschatos is the Lord Himself. With a Christ-centered focus ever in mind, we can then move to the consideration of death, the intermediate state, the Parousia, the resurrection, the tribulation, the millennium, the final judgment, eternal condemnation, and eternal glory.
Your final chapter in A Theology for the Church is one of the finest contributions to systematic eschatology, precisely because you maintain such a priority, Dr. Moore.
As for interest in eschatology, my repeated experience is that it is a perennial favorite topic of discussion, alongside soteriology and ecclesiology, during open Q&A sessions in the classroom and in the local churches.
@Malcolm Yarnell, yes, Koenig is precisely right that Christ is central in eschatology. That’s what I think is at stake when eschatology is either dimmed due to affluence or turned instead into a carnival show about current events. For too many in Christian culture, what’s central are the current events, not the Christ for whom and by whom all things were created!
Malcolm,
Perhaps I get few questions and hear few comments about eschatology from students because I teach Baptist History and Church History rather than Systematic Theology (or Biblical Studies). By far most of the questions I get relate to either ecclesiology, soteriology, or (for lack of a better phrase) “practical ministry.”
I do still hear lots of questions about eschatology when I do Q&A in local churches, though in my experience even in local churches my younger interlocutors seem less interested in eschatology (regrettably) than middle-aged and seasoned saints.
NAF
My understanding of Biblical eschatology is something I am still trying to work through. I think the reason so many younger men are not so interested is because there seems to be no solid ground on which to stand. Great men cannot agree and if greater minds than ours cannot figure it out then there is little need to try. We focus on and proclaim the things we are sure of, “I am a great sinner, and Christ is a great Savior”. He is coming again and only those found in Him will be saved. Those found outside of Christ will encounter the Judge before whom they will bow the knee and receive a judgment of eternal torment.
[Just some web quotes I stumbled across - Stacy]
Famous Rapture Watchers - Addendum
by Dave MacPherson
(The statements in my “Famous Rapture Watchers” web article appeared in my 1983 book “The Great Rapture Hoax” and quoted only past leaders. Here are the other leaders who were quoted in that original printing.)
Oswald J. Smith: “…I am absolutely convinced that there will be no rapture before the Tribulation, but that the Church will undoubtedly be called upon to face the Antichrist…” (Tribulation or Rapture - Which?, p. 2).
Paul B. Smith: “You are perfectly free to quote me as believing rather emphatically in the post-tribulation teaching of the Bible” (letter dated June 9, 1976).
S. I. McMillen: “…Christians will suffer in the Great Tribulation” (Discern These Times, p. 55).
Norman F. Douty: “…all of the evidence of history runs one way - in favor of Post-tribulationism” (Has Christ’s Return Two Stages?, p. 113).
Leonard Ravenhill: “There is a cowardly Christianity which…still comforts its fainting heart with the hope that there will be a rapture - perhaps today - to catch us away from coming tribulation” (Sodom Had No Bible, p. 94).
William Hendriksen: “…the one and only second coming of Christ to judgment” (Israel in Prophecy, p. 29).
Loraine Boettner: “Hence we conclude that nowhere in Scripture does it teach a secret or pre-tribulation Rapture” (The Millennium, p. 168).
J. Sidlow Baxter: “…believers of the last days (there is only one small part of the total Church on earth at any given moment) will be on earth during the so-called ‘Great Tribulation’ ” (Explore the Book, Vol. 6, p. 345).
Merrill C. Tenney: “There is no convincing reason why the seer’s being ‘in the Spirit’ and being called into heaven [Revelation 4:1-2] typifies the rapture of the church…” (Interpreting Revelation, p. 141).
James R. Graham: “…there is not a line of the N.T. that declares a pre-tribulation rapture, so its advocates are compelled to read it into certain indeterminate texts…” (Watchman, What of the Night?, p. 79).
Ralph Earle: “The teaching of a pre-tribulation rapture seems first to have been emphasized widely about 100 years ago by John Darby of the Plymouth Brethren” (Behold, I Come, p. 74).
Clarence B. Bass: “…I most strongly believe dispensationalism to be a departure from the historic faith…” (Backgrounds to Dispensationalism, p. 155).
William C. Thomas: “The return of Jesus Christ, described by parousia, revelation, and epiphany, is one single, glorious, triumphant event for which we all wait with great eagerness!” (The Blessed Hope in the Thessalonian Epistles of Paul, p. 42).
Harold J. Ockenga: “No exegetical justification exists for the arbitrary separation of the ‘coming of Christ’ and the ‘day of the Lord.’ It is one ‘day of the Lord Jesus Christ’ ” (Christian Life, February, 1955).
Duane Edward Spencer: “Paul makes it very clear that the Church will pass through the Great Tribulation” (”Rapture-Tribulation” cassette).
J. C. Maris: “Nowhere the Bible teaches that the Church of Jesus Christ is heading for world dominion. On the contrary - there will be no place for her, save in ‘the wilderness,’ where God will take care of her (Rev. 12:13-17)” (I.C.C.C. leaflet “The Danger of the Ecumenical Movement,” p. 2).
F. F. Bruce: “To meet the Lord [I Thessalonians 4:17]…on the final stage of…[Christ's] journey…to the earth…” (New Bible Commentary: Revised, p. 1159).
G. Christian Weiss: “Some people say that this ['gospel of the kingdom' in Matthew 24:14] is not the gospel of grace but is a special aspect of the gospel to be preached some time in the future. But there is nothing in the context to indicate this” (”Back to the Bible” broadcast, February 9, 1976).
Pat Brooks: “Soon we, in the Body of Christ, will be confronted by millions of people disillusioned by such false teaching [Pre-Tribism]” (Hear, O Israel, p. 186).
Herman Hoeksema: “…the time of Antichrist, when days so terrible are still to arrive for the church…” (Behold, He Cometh!, p. 131).
Ray Summers: “Because they [Philadelphia] have been faithful, he promises his sustaining grace in the tribulation…” (Worthy Is the Lamb, p. 123).
George E. Ladd: “[Pretribulationism] may be guilty of the positive danger of leaving the Church unprepared for tribulation when Antichrist appears…” (The Blessed Hope, p. 164).
Peter Beyerhaus: “The Christian Church on earth [will face] the final, almost superhuman test of being confronted with the apocalyptical temptation by Antichrist” (Christianity Today, April 13, 1973).
Leon Morris: “The early Christians…looked for the Christ to come as Judge” (Apocalyptic, p. 84).
Dale Moody: “There is not a passage in the New Testament to support Scofield. The call to John to ‘come up hither’ has reference to mystical ecstasy, not to a pretribulation rapture” (Spirit of the Living God, p. 203).
John R. W. Stott: “He would not spare them from the suffering [Revelation 3:10]; but He would uphold them in it” (What Christ Thinks of the Church, p. 104).
G. R. Beasley-Murray: “…the woman, i.e., the Church…flees for refuge into the wilderness [Revelation 12:14]…” (The New Bible Commentary, p. 1184).
Bernard L. Ramm: “…as the Church moves to meet her Lord at the parousia world history is also moving to meet its Judge at the same parousia” (Leo Eddleman’s Last Things, p. 41).
J. Barton Payne: “…the twentieth century has indeed witnessed a progressively rising revolt against pre-tribulationism” (The Imminent Appearing of Christ, p. 38).
Robert H. Gundry: “Divine wrath does not blanket the entire seventieth week…but concentrates at the close” (The Church and the Tribulation, p. 63).
C. S. Lovett: “Frankly I favor a post-trib rapture…I no longer teach Christians that they will NOT have to go through the tribulation” (PC, January, 1974).
Walter R. Martin: “Walter Martin finally said…’Yes, I’m a post-trib’ ” (Lovett’s PC, December, 1976).
Jay Adams: “Today’s trend is…from pre- to posttribulationism” (The Time Is at Hand, p. 2).
Jim McKeever: “Nowhere do the Scriptures say that the Rapture will precede the Tribulation” (Christians Will Go Through the Tribulation, p. 55).
Arthur Katz: “I think it fair to tell you that I do not subscribe to the happy and convenient theology which says that God’s people are going to be raptured and lifted up when a time of tribulation and trial comes” (Reality, p. 8).
Billy Graham: “Perhaps the Holy Spirit is getting His Church ready for a trial and tribulation such as the world has never known” (Sam Shoemaker’s Under New Management, p. 72).
W. J. Grier: “The Scofield Bible makes a rather desperate effort…it tries to get in the ‘rapture’ of the saints before the appearing of Antichrist” (The Momentous Event, p. 58).
Pat Robertson: “Jesus Christ is going to come back to earth again to deliver Israel and at the same time to rapture His Church; it’s going to be one moment, but it’s going to be a glorious time” (”700 Club” telecast, May 14, 1975).
Ben Kinchlow: “Any wrath [during the Tribulation] that comes upon us - any difficulty - will not be induced by God, but it’ll be like the people are saying, ‘The cause of our problems are those Christians in our midst; we need to get rid of them’ ” (”700 Club” telecast, August 28, 1979).
Daniel P. Fuller: “It is thus concluded that Dispensationalism fails to pass the test of an adequate system of Biblical Interpretation” (The Hermeneutics of Dispensationalism, p. 369).
Corrie ten Boom: “The Bible prophesies that the time will come when we cannot buy or sell, unless we bear the sign of the Antichrist…” (Tramp for the Lord, p. 187).
@Stacy, Wow, what an overwhelming amount of Biblical data! Oh wait…
Is it possible that the seeming indifference to eschatology by the younger generation is due in part to the lack of confessional expression over the essential issues in regards to eschatology?
I can certainly empathize with tentativeness over many of the issues in eschatology due to the relative dearth in my educational experience over the topic. My home church basically danced around the entire subject while growing up due in part to the fear of division over what was deemed a ‘non-essential.’ My systematic theology classes in college only gave a cursory amount of attention to the topic since it was squeezed down to one-two days because of time constrictions (aka more class time given to soteriology and ecclesiology). Even at the seminary level, I am well aware of a number of fellow students who are very uncertain in what they believe concerning the end times; hence, there is a general adversion to the topic as a whole.
It seems as if the necessary aspects of the Gospel as it relates to eschatology (as expressed by Dr. Moore - “Future judgment, bodily resurrection, new heavens and new earth, the reality of hell”) are less and less focused on even by those seeking Gospel unity. When considering 1st tier issues of what it means to be a Christian, my assumption is that these eschatological issues are not actively being expressed as they ought.
Brian, Please forgive me for taking so long to respond. Your comment, for whatever reason, went to our spam filter so it was retrieved much later! I would respond by video but I am far, far from presentable yet this morning. I am grateful for your kind words about Adopted for Life.
I think you should get you a Dan Kimball hairdo.