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The Olivet Discourse I
An introductory Reflection on Mark Chapter 13
Back in 1978 when I came home after becoming a Christian at English L’Abri, I quickly got involved in a local church in Columbia pastored by a gentleman named Paul Wright who taught at the Graduate School of Columbia Bible College. He was an excellent expositor of scripture and mentor of young enthusiastic Christians like myself. In addition to the time learning from Paul there at Christ Fellowship Church, I also spent a fair bit of time listening to a Christian Radio station in Columbia operated out of Columbia Bible College. I couldn’t get enough teaching, and tuned in to WMHK whenever I could. I well remember listening to Dr. J. Vernon McGee, Dr. Gutzke, Stuart Briscoe, Chuck Swindol and may others. In addition, I subscribed to the Last Days Ministries of Keith Green, and read lots of books, including some of the popular end-times books such as “Late Great Planet Earth” by Hal Lindsay
I grew and learned a lot in these early days, and will always be fond of these radio preachers and the role they had in my Christian life. What I didn’t know at the time was that most of these radio preachers shared a common commitment to a stream of thought known as “dispensationalism.” In addition to this input received from the radio preachers, most of the folks at Christ Fellowship were at least mildly “dispensational,” although Paul did not preach much on that subject. Since so much of dispensationalism has to do with the “end times,” I guess I sort of absorbed without thinking many of the common dispensationalist assumptions and conclusions -- that we were living uniquely in the last days, that 1948, the date of the re-establishment of national Israel, was the key date for end times, that Jesus would return in the generation after the establishment of national Israel and “rapture” the church before the great tribulation, that after a great battle Israel would gain full control of the promised land and rebuild the temple on the temple mount, that this would be followed by a thousand year reign of Jesus from Jerusalem, after which Jesus would return again with his saints, etc. And Oh! the charts and maps of how it would all turn out! I more or less bought into all that hook line and sinker, and never much cared enough to study it in depth for myself.
Of course I was beginning to ask and seek perspective on many other important questions relating to salvation: What is God’s plan for His world? Who are the people of God and what are they to be about? What is our role to be in the human culture into which we are born? What is the kingdom of God spoken about so much in the New Testament? What does it mean to pray “Thy kingdom come”? What is the nature of saving faith? Is growing in obedience to Christ necessary for salvation? Eventually, answers I was forming to other very real issues of Christian faith and practice began to run headlong into the dispensationalist teachings.
Then, back in 1987, in my second year of seminary, I had to write a paper on the question of who were the people reigning with Christ in Revelation 20:4. It surprised me to find out that this section of Scripture was the only place where any sort of “thousand year reign” was ever mentioned. The passage was very difficult in a basic grammatical sense, and I struggled to make sense of the alternative approaches. In the process of trying to answer the question I stumbled across views which had, in fact, been long held by the church, but which differed greatly with the dispensationalism I had absorbed all along. I began to study more closely other biblical passages which touched on the final state or the “end time,” passages such as 1 Thessalonians 4 and 5, 1st Corinthians 15, and Romans 8 to name a few. In addition, I began to study in earnest the whole question of God’s calling of Abraham, His covenant with Israel, the manner in which Old Testament promises were taken up and seen as fulfilled by New Testament writers, the comparison of the New to the Old Covenants, etc. Gradually I came to see and strongly to believe that the dispensationalist teaching I had absorbed over my early years as a Christian was simply, and profoundly, not true to Scripture.
As I try to summarize what is distinctive about classic dispensationalist theology, the one overarching and definitive characteristic of it is the belief that God has a distinct and separate plan and agenda in history for national Israel on the one hand, and for the church on the other. Indeed, God’s real plan in history is for the kingdom of Israel (plan A), and the church as we know it takes up a period of time called the church age, or age of grace (plan B), inserted, with a certain salvific purpose of course, as a parenthesis into His plan for Israel. The “rapture” is God’s way of ending this parenthetical period of the church age by getting the church out of the way so he can continue with plan A, the kingdom of Israel. In this approach there are two peoples of God who are and who ever will be distinct. There is much written in dispensationalist literature about the difference between the age of law and the age of grace, the former characterizing Israel and the kingdom of God, the latter the church and the gospel era. Since, in their mind, obedience as a “necessity” has to do with “law” and not “grace,” then saving faith is understood as “assent” to truth and must not be thought to necessarily include any accompanying action or obedience based on that assent. Repentance is defined similarly – as a “change of mind” about sin and the need for salvation, and not by an actual changing of loyalty. And since the promises of the Old Testament have primarily to do with national Israel, and since they have not yet been fulfilled, their fulfillment must be still future for us, which brings us to all the books about the Soviet Bear and Iraq and Y2K and whatnot.
I do not have time to go into a full scale critique. I would however like to offer up a few positive yet contrary notions.
There is only one people of God and God has only ever had one plan for this people. The purpose of national Israel was limited and preparatory, and Israel as a nation was to be of limited duration in time. Jesus in his person and ministry and death and resurrection fulfills the purpose not only of the law of Israel but of Israel herself. The New Covenant, which is superior to the Old Covenant of Sinai in every way, fulfills and replaces forever the Old Covenant. Jesus now reigns at the right hand of God as King over the people of God, who now are identified not by the Old Covenant symbols – circumcision, temple, Zion, that is, by adherence to the Torah -- but by faith in Christ and the presence of the Spirit. The people of God now consist of people from every tribe and nation – Jew and Gentile – the barriers between the two having been broken down in Christ. Those who are in Christ are children of Abraham, and the purpose for which God chose and called Abraham is now being realized as people come to and submit to Jesus Christ, the “seed” of Abraham. As a mustard seed growing to become a large garden shrub, the kingdom of King Jesus is growing and spreading throughout the world. The people of King Jesus, indwelt, gifted, energized and led by the Spirit sent from Him, are to be characterized by “kingdom” qualities – by poverty of spirit, love, faithfulness, joy, peace, purity, gentleness, self control, etc. We now await, not the resurrection of national Israel, but the final consummation, when Jesus returns and the dead in Christ are raised unto the judgment and He ushers in the final and consummated kingdom, when the curse is undone, and when the earth and all creation is renewed by God for all time.
Obviously the sorts of issues mentioned in the previous paragraph go way beyond some mere speculative or unhealthy curiosity about the end times. But getting back to end-times, as you may know, many who either never bought into or who like me have turned away from the dispensationalist scheme, still struggle to understand just how the final consummation will come about. There are non dispensationalists who believe that Jesus will reign over an earth-wide kingdom of united Jew/Gentile in Christ for a 1000 years before the final resurrection and judgment, but this reign has nothing to do with the reemergence of national Israel, building of the temple, or any of that. These folks hold to what is called the historic premillennial position. Others believe that the 1000 years is mean to convey that period between the first and second coming when Jesus reigns over his people from his exalted heavenly throne, and that when Jesus returns it will be return, resurrection, judgment, and New Heaven and New Earth following one right after the other. These folks represent the amillennial position (I am partial to this view). Other non dispensationalists believe that there will be a growing “Christianization” that will usher in a 1000 year period of Christian victory and prosperity, after which Jesus will return. This view is called postmillennialism.
In general I would encourage the following process when trying to get a handle on “eschatology,” or the issues relating to the “end.”
First, don’t start in Revelation or in the famous “Olivet Discourse” in Mark 13 or Matthew 24. Go to the book of Acts and the epistles of Paul and Peter, to passages such as 1 Thessalonians 4:13 – 5:11, 2 Thessalonians 1:5-10, 1 Corinthians 15:20-28, Romans 8:18-25, 1 John 3:1-3, 2 Peter 3:1-14, 1 Peter 1:3-9, 2 Timothy 3:1-5, Acts 17:31, Acts 10:39-43, or 2 Corinthians 5:6-10. These passages are relatively free of the apocalyptic and difficult imagery that characterizes Revelation and the Olivet Discourse. Specifically, without “scheme” in mind, ask these passages what they say about the resurrection, the judgment, the coming of Jesus, the New Heaven and New Earth, etc.
Second, as you read these passages, make a list of what the passage itself says we are to do with the information about the end times. That is, what does 1st Thessalonians 4:13-5:11 say about the way we are to live in light of the imminent coming of Jesus?
Third, start pretty much anywhere in the Gospels or Acts ( I suggest Acts), and wherever your Bible tells you that the writer is quoting from the Old Testament (by way of a footnote of setting the text out differently), go and read that Old Testament passage. Look at its context and what it seems to be pointing to, and then notice how the New Testament writer applies or uses the Old Testament passage. Certainly we do not know more about how the Old Testament is to be applied than did Paul or Peter or Stephen or Jesus!
Fourth, using a concordance, look up the New Testament end time phrases such as “last days,” “that day,” the “day of the Lord,” the “day of Christ,” the “end of the age,” the “end of the ages,” the “last day,” this age,” “this present age,” the “age to come” the “day of judgment,” “the end” etc. I promise that you will enjoy such a study and will learn a lot. When you’re done, let’s compare notes!
Fifth, going back to Revelation, I suggest you read a non-dispensationalist book about it. Even if you don’t agree with it, you perhaps will respect the non dispensationalist position more, and be in a better position to understand the options. I would suggest either William Hendrickson’s “More Than Conquerors,” which represents a solid “amillennial” position or Kenneth Gentry’s “Before Jerusalem: Dating the Book of Revelation,” which represents a ‘postmillennial” position.
Now, I need to make clear again that putting aside the dispensationalist scheme doesn’t solve all the problems or answer all the questions about the end times. There is much to understand and try to figure out. Though the “covenant theology” of our local church and denomination pretty much officially rules out dispensationalism in terms of our ordination vows and official teachings, there is still much to discuss and with which to grapple. We at Covenant Fellowship have no official position regarding the various millennial approaches laid out in the paragraph above. We even have a diversity of views within our own eldership at Covenant Fellowship. Plus, we know that many if not most of the people who have grown as Christians in America have absorbed dispensationalist teaching. With respect to the end-time aspects of dispensationalism it is not our primary agenda to counter, teach against, or otherwise suppress dispensationalist teaching. Many of you reading this letter have more or less dispensationalist views and carry on quite well in our fellowship! We don’t reinforce it for you, but neither are we aggressive at opposing it. Well, that’s the case regarding some of the more limited end-time issues. I suppose our teaching on the nature of saving faith, the nature and the purpose of the people of God, the necessity of submitting to the Lordship of Christ, and the purpose of the present era of God’s plan in history would irritate a full blooded dispensationalist over time. But it’s never our purpose to irritate just to irritate!
But then the sermon series brings us to Mark chapter 13, and something has to be said about things like the coming of Jesus, the tribulation, the profanation of the temple, the preaching of the gospel to the earth, etc. My treatment of Mark 13 will not encourage the dispensationalist reading. Because some of you may have heard no other approach to Mark 13 (Matthew 24, Luke 21) than the dispensationalist one, you might find the approach I take odd, or curious, or worse. My hope certainly is that you will understand the issues better and have a greater sense of how God wants you to live as you await the final coming of the Lord Jesus.
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