Evening of Eschatology, part 2

The New Heavens and the New Earth as a Renewed Eden

Well then, I guess that settles it.

What is the final, final, final condition of the universe where we will spend eternity? Just describe it in a nutshell.

New heavens and new earth, incorruptible. And I think that the description in Revelation 21 and 22 matches and exceeds point for point what we find in Genesis 1 and 2, the description of the Garden of Eden.

It's a new and better Eden, where God and the Lamb are the temple, they will see his face, there will be no need of sun or moon, there will be no seed, no evil, and it will be a perfectly clean and holy of holy place.

This earth?

This earth included. So there's going to be a reunification of heaven and earth. But this earth is not rejected, and I think the clearest place that's taught is in Romans 8, where the whole creation groans, waiting for the manifestation of the sons of God, and we are predestined to be conformed to the image of Christ.

And there are three groans in that passage. The creation groans, we who have the first fruits of the Spirit groan, and the Spirit helps us in our weakness with groans that are too deep for words. And all of that groaning is teleological, it's focused toward the same end, which is the revelation of our adoption as sons, which is the redemption of the body, the resurrection.

Of the dead.

So this created order, this old earth, is longing for the day when the Christians are manifested for who they are, because our salvation will be this earth's salvation, and it will be swept up into this, as you were saying this morning, it's going to be, God's going to blow the top of it, so we can't connect it.

So there's a, not an annihilation of the present order, and a new one, but rather what? What would you call it?

Resurrected, resurrected, death and resurrection pattern for the created order, just as for.

Us.

There's a continuity and discontinuity in terms of what will happen with us in our resurrection bodies. We will be raised in these bodies, but they'll be gloriously changed, eradicated, sin eradicated, evil eradicated, with new properties, new capacities that we can't even begin to grasp.

We see a little bit of it in Jesus in his post-resurrection state upon the earth, and there will be continuity, but also great discontinuity in moving from this earth to the new earth. I would agree with exactly how Jim had described it just a moment ago, and I'd also say I'm glad you read the Romans 8 passage, because that's one of the reasons why I'm a millennial.

Heaven Is Not My Home, Only the Intermediate State Is

So you tip your hand.

I'm sorry for stumbling you.

So we're all moving toward, in your book, Heaven Misplaced, is that what it's called? You have a phrase that I thought was provocative, which is not unusual. This world is not my home. I'm just a passing through, and you changed it to, you remember?

No, I don't.

Heaven is not my home. I'm just a passing through.

Explain that.

Or I will, if you can't remember.

I often don't remember what I write.

I remember it now.

But this is important, because a lot of us here, I think in America and evangelicalism, think, I'm going to heaven, period. I'm in heaven, that's it, and now I'm there. Let's clarify that.

And what they think about when they think heaven, they get most of the theology of heaven from Farside cartoons and Pearly Gates jokes. And someone dies, goes to be with the Lord, Paul says, to be absent from the bodies, to be present with the Lord.

So here we are.

You believe that?

Absolutely.

Paul said it.

And it doesn't mean something weird.

Paul often means something weird, but not there. So to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. That means in 2009, if I die, then I'm with the Lord, instantly. But let's say the second coming, for the sake of discussion, is a thousand years out still.

So what's the condition of the departed saint between this date and the day of resurrection? Well, that's the intermediate state, for want of a better phrase, the intermediate state of glory, where you're with the Lord.

And many Christians have gone that far, which is good, the Bible, I think the Bible teaches.

It.

Philippians 1.

It is better.

It's better than here, right?

To depart and to be with Christ.

If I have a church member who dies this year, I can say to them, this is going to be so much better now.

Absolutely.

Right.

So keep going.

Because you're in the millennial reign of Christ.

Save that. Now he's emanatizing the eschaton. So in that intermediate state, many Christians have accepted that intermediate state as our final hope.

Yes.

But in the creed, we confess that we believe in the resurrection of the dead, not in the immortality of the soul. Now we do believe in the immortality of the soul, but that's not our final hope. Our final hope is the dead are raised.

And so this intermediate state of heaven, many Christians have said, that's my final.

Hope.

And they think that they're going to die and go off into a 17th dimension floaty place. And this floaty place is something they can't even relate, begin to relate to. And so they don't think about it at all.

They sort of put it out of their minds because they can't get them, am I going to be a human being? What am I, you know, good grief. And so they don't long for the day of resurrection. But what you were citing this morning, when we see him, we're going to become like him because we're going to see him as he is.

Everyone who has this hope in himself purifies himself, even as he is pure. So when we hope for the day of resurrection, that has a sanctification, that's a sanctifying influence. And if we get stuck halfway in the intermediate state, we're not setting our final hope where we, where we ought to.

So when I said, this world is not my home, I'm just passing through and I flipped around. Heaven is not my home. I'm just passing through. I was referring to that intermediate state, right? We're just passing through the intermediate state.

And when we're, when, when we die and go to be with the Lord, it's better than here in that intermediate state because you're with Christ, but you still have something to look forward to.

Yeah.

Massive to look forward to. Resurrection of the body and all of its capacities to delight in Christ. So we're still together, right?

Okay.

So die, go to be with Christ, whatever the timeframe is, we wind up on a planet, renovated, that word. Okay. And, um, radically, radically renovated, radically renovated. No sea. You said that's going to disappoint a lot of people.

Does that bother you?

No.

I think it bothers me.

Well, the sea, the sea, I think is a symbol of evil and a place from which the beast can.

Have a seat.

But who knows?

That's good to hear him say that it's a symbol, right?

Yeah.

You can't let it go. I'm eager. You can't let it go. You can't prepare to do one thing.

Yeah.

This one thing I do harp on a millennial. So at any rate, no sea means something like, I think it means the ocean becomes a lake. Lakes are okay.

Right?

I really believe that Caesar dangers. They have, they have leviathans in them and they have depths that really scary and you sink and you, it's just horrible. But lakes, people go to lakes in Minnesota.

So certain things need to be mortified, man.

Not the love of lakes greatness, but anyway. So it's going to be different. It's going to be good. We can tell our children. I remember nine years old, lying on top of my house, looking at the stars and not wanting heaven to come.

I'm scared of heaven because it seems so ethereal. So what was that phrase you were using? So floaty.

Floaty.

And I remember as a boy, as a boy growing up in a conservative evangelical situation, I remember distinctly not wanting to go to heaven. I did not want to go to heaven because you couldn't play football there.

Yep.

Yep.

You couldn't do, you didn't have a body.

The best answer to that is not that there'll be football there, right? However, that Christ will be there. We need to grow into that, but probably football.

Right.

You hear that?

Yeah.

So the issue.

Maybe golf.

Maybe.

Remote possibility.

Assuredly, baseball.

That's right.

That's right.

GMB.

That's right.

So they get the idea.

We get the idea that we're all aiming toward a new earth, new heavens, radically, gloriously 10 ,000 times better. No sun needed. The moon was replaced by the lamb who is the lamp and just stunningly attractive.

And we'll all want to be there. And all the capacities, test this one, because I really want us to agree on these massive things. All the capacities for senses have not been created to be thrown away.

Taste, sight, touch, smell, hearing, music, art. All the things that seem to enrich the life that isn't just scraping out a living will be maximized there and Christ will radiate off.

Right.

And what the point about football and golf and those things, the underlying, the subtext there is we will have bodies. We will be human beings. We're not going to be ghosts. And many Christians have become Gnostics.

You know, if you tell them that Jesus rose from the dead spiritually, they'll fight you tooth and nail because that's liberalism. But when you ask them, what will your body be like? They often say, you know, body.

And I can't tell you how many times when I've emphasized Jesus in his resurrection appearance, he goes into the kitchen and rummages in the fridge for some fish and honey and he sets up a little barbecue on the beach and John and cooks some fish there.

Christians know that Jesus had a body, but Philippians says that our lowly bodies are going to be transformed to be like his body. And many Christians don't think that they will have bodies. And that's the point of this.

However glorious it is, it's going to be further up and further in. It's going to be, I think this is one of the best things about Lewis, it's going to be more solid, more material, more glorious, more weighty, not a ghostly, ethereal existence.

Amen.

Premillennial, Postmillennial, and Amillennial Views of Revelation 20

Now, on the way there, what do we encounter? So now I want you guys to just take whatever amount of time you want within limits to sketch your position. Pre-millennial, if you want to be called that, post-millennial, if you want to be called that, amillennial, if you want to be called that.

So start and let the watchers of this thing know what that is and whatever else you want to say about it. Why you like it, why you believe it, but it can't be forever, okay? So just relatively, and whatever, why don't we go like this?

So I think the key question here and the question that settles this discussion is does or does not John intend to teach that there is going to be this thousand year period between a first resurrection and a second resurrection?

So can I just suggest this? Sketch your position, all of you, and then let's go there, okay? In detail. Read it. Read it. Is that okay?

You want me to read this passage now?

No, no.

I want to do that after we get the sketches. After we sketch the position. Is that all right?

Sure. Sure.

I mean, if you don't like that, just tell me I don't like that and we'll do it another.

Way.

Well, my position is that Revelation does communicate symbols, but we should interpret the symbols in relationship to one another, and that if we do that, it is clear that there's going to be a resurrection of believers, and then they will reign with Christ for a thousand years, and then there'll be another resurrection, a great white throne judgment.

The next thing on the agenda is Christ comes.

Christ comes. That's right.

That's where the resurrection happens.

All the believers rise. The unbelievers do not rise in this first resurrection, and then the believers all reign with Christ for a thousand years.

Literally on the earth.

Literally on the earth.

Jesus is here.

Jesus is here. He's the resurrection body.

Yes, and pre-millennials often say that there are unbelievers who survive his first coming and enter into the millennium, and that they then have offspring, and that not necessarily everyone is regenerated in that period.

And if this seems fantastic and difficult to believe, again, I just want to point to this being a plausible idea for contemporaries of the authors of these texts. And so anyway, after this period, after this thousand-year reign, there will be a releasing.

Of Satan.

He's been bound for this thousand years. There'll be a final rebellion. It will be put down, and then the great white throne judgment will be set up. So I read Revelation 20 sequentially. And then comes the new heavens and the new earth.

That's correct.

Okay.

I think that's pretty clear. So you assumed, you mentioned it in retrospect, that when he comes, when Christ comes in the resurrection, there's a binding and a pit thing there going on.

Yes, that's right. We'll get to that in that passage.

Okay.

So Christ comes, Christians are raised, unbelievers are not, the millennium, which refers to a.

Thousand years. It says he's going to reign for a thousand years.

Okay, a thousand years of reigning, final judgment, new heavens, new earth.

Dave, your turn.

Postmillennialism, the Great Commission, and the Destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70

I'm happy to be called a post-millennialist, although I think it is unfortunate that all the major positions are named after a word that occurs in one chapter. I think one of the most difficult chapters in one of the most difficult books of the Bible.

And then all the positions take their orientation from where do you think Christ's coming is going to be with relationship to that millennium. So on Revelation 20, there are a number of things that I haven't sorted out yet, but I've sorted out enough to know that I believe myself to be a post, what is commonly called a post-millennialist.

And that is just something on the book of Revelation. Ambrose Bierce in his book, The Devil's Dictionary, said, defined apocalypse as a book in which St. John the Divine concealed all that he knew. The revealing is done by the commentators who know nothing.

So with that as a warning to myself, my understanding of the map of redemptive history is that God created man in the Edenic state. We rebelled and fell. God promised a Messiah through types and shadows and sacrifices, prepared the way, tilled the soil, preparing the way for the restoration of Eden.

When Christ came in the fullness of time, he was born of a woman, born under the law, he was crucified for the sins of all his people, buried, raised from the dead and ascended into heaven, gave his Holy Spirit.

In 70 AD, that age of preparation came to a climactic, convulsive conclusion.

And shortly...

Tell the people why. Not everybody here knows what happened in 70 AD.

In 70 AD, the temple was destroyed by the Roman army. There was a revolt of the Jews against Rome. It lasted for... The revolt lasted, interestingly, for 42 months. Excuse me, Nero's persecution of the church lasted for 42 months, which is named in the book of Revelation as the period of time that the beast would be attacking the saints.

So I believe that this convulsive conclusion to the age of preparation came in 70 AD. Up to that time, it was possible for Christians to go to the temple and worship as Paul did. Paul would go there and preach, he took a Nazarite vow, and he was still functioning in the structure of the temple because it was, as the author of Hebrews said, it didn't end in 33 AD, it's fading away.

It's about to be done. At Pentecost, the new age was established, the Christian aeon was established. And I believe that post-millennialism, in brief, is this. It's the idea that the gospel is going to grow and flourish and take over the whole.

Earth.

Basically, the Great Commission will be successful. Prior to all the nations discipled, baptized, taught obedience, the Great Commission will be successful on earth, in history, the world will be Christianized.

Then Jesus will come, all enemies will be subdued, brought under his feet, Psalm 110, the Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand, that happened in the Ascension, Jesus ascended into heaven, and God told him, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool.

So Christ's enemies are made a footstool progressively throughout all history, and then he will come and judge the last enemy personally, death. So at the conclusion of the Christian aeon, which the millennium I take as a symbol of this Christian aeon, this age of grace, the age in which the Great Commission is being fulfilled, at the end of this, Christ will come again and destroy the last enemy, death, the dead will be raised, and we are ushered into the eternal state.

So I believe that Judaic aeon, new creation, new heavens and earth, the age to come, now.

Satan is bound now?

Yes, with regard to deceiving the nations.

And Revelation was written before AD 70?

Yes, thank you. I believe the book of Revelation was written, and I believe the whole of the New Testament I believe was written prior to 70 AD. So I believe that John is prophesying the destruction of Jerusalem, the great harlot I take as the city of Jerusalem.

So when Paul tells the Thessalonians that they were destined to suffer, and when Peter says to the Christians that he writes to that they were called for this, to follow in Jesus' footsteps' suffering, that applies to those Christians before 70 AD or to us now too?

It certainly applies to them. That was the context in which that was being written. But the same thing applies to us as well.

Even though we're going to take over the earth?

Well certainly, especially because we're going to take over. So the point is, when the gospel goes forth, it's going forth into a hostile world. So we're declaring that Christ is Lord, Christ is King.

They don't want Him to be King. They want to deny that. So you're going to see the same thing played out over and over again.

But you're saying that the gospel is going to take over, and that we're going to dominate the world, at which point the suffering would end. Or you said a minute ago, we're in the millennium, right? So suffering has ended for you.

Well, I hate to break it to you.

Not at this very moment. Although you counted all joy.

I'm doing okay.

So here's the, if you take the millennium as, there's a difference between some of the 19th century post-millennialists and some of the contemporary ones of whether the thousand years is literal. Some say that the Great Commission is fulfilled progressively, finally gets to a certain tipping point, and then there's a literal thousand-year golden age before the end.

Others, more contemporary post-millennialists, generally take it as the entire church age.

So can you explain to me how the suffering dynamic works?

The suffering dynamic is the way the golden age is ushered in is constant in all ages. And it's the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.

So you never really realize the millennium, where the gospel has taken over and suffering ends?

No, because Christ is, for example, Christ is not suffering now. But he has suffered. So you can enjoy the fruit of, you can...

But I'm asking about the suffering that we do as we follow in the footsteps of Christ.

Right, as we suffer, as we sacrifice, as we send missionaries out to preach the gospel, as people give their lives away, not wasting their lives, as they do this sort of thing, God honors it, God blesses it.

And when God blesses it, subsequent generations enjoy the fruit of that. And at some point in history, you have to enter into that possession.

But I'm pressing this question because I think the New Testament is clear that Christians are going to follow in the footsteps of Jesus and conquer the way he conquered by being faithful unto death, not loving their lives even unto death, until he comes.

And then there'll be this millennium, but that's clear from what I said a minute ago. And I don't see how that fits in the post-millennial scheme.

But see, we'd all have the same problem, right? In the millennium, you still have followers of Jesus. You still have degenerate people who aren't being persecuted.

But at that point, everyone who's beheaded on behalf of Jesus gets raised, and Christ now reigns the way that you say he reigns now, and there's no more persecution of Christians because Satan is bound, according to the way that I would read Revelation 20.

So, as a quick answer to this, I would say that if you take martyrdom and suffering as a bare minimum that you can't be a disciple unless it's happening to you, that leaves a lot of North American Christians up a creek.

Well, they may not be assaulting us physically, but they're coming at us and telling us basically that our heads are in the sand, or they're, in various ways, telling us to be quiet at the Thanksgiving dinner.

Except for the way the recipients of Peter's first letter did.

Right, verbal, not necessarily physical.

Slander, ostracism, marginalized.

That's right. And it seems to me that your position would demand that all that's over if we're in the millennium, and Satan is bound.

Let me ask it this way. Just sketch out a little more the Golden Age, because that's never been clear to me from Edwards. People should know that you're on the side of my favorite theologian.

I was going to bring that up.

This is a problem to me.

There's too many arguments for post-millennialism. One, it's a lot of fun. And number two...

Jonathan Edwards believed it.

And Jonathan Edwards believed it, and I'm tempted to rest my case.

Believed it in past tense.

Yeah, that's right. He doesn't believe it anymore.

Not anymore. That's right. That's right. Not anymore.

And I think John has a greater authority than Jonathan Edwards.

And I want to argue eventually, although I'm the moderator, and I'm supposed to be careful, that the very fun... I don't like the word, but I know what you mean... that you have can be had by all three of these views big time.

I read you, and I think, hmm, practically, how is this working out? We'll go there. So I don't get Edwards. You get Edwards. But I do get fun. I get the fun.

Yeah, you can have fun.

But I want him to sketch it out. How long does the golden age have to last? Like five years?

Well... A year?

And how do you know when you're there? Is it 70 or Christian or 80? You got any of that in your head?

Actually, that's an easy one, because the answer to all of that is, man, we don't know.

We don't know.

How could we know that? It does not yet appear. If the final end result, it does not yet appear. What we're going to be like.

Could it be right now? We're in it?

Yeah, I suspect.

Cool.

Not.

Did they enter into it when they had the shining city on the hill here when they first came over? And they had this society that was dominated by believers?

Yeah.

That's one of the problems, is that Christians frequently, because I should say that from the Reformation, very early on, within the first few generations in the Reformation, down through Jonathan Edwards and men like Warfield, the post-millennial view has been very, very common in Reformed circles.

It was the received view for a long period of time. And one of the temptations of post-millennialists, and this goes off of your talk this morning about the new heavens and the new earth and confusing the gift with the giver and your talk last night, the temptation that post-millennialists face is that of getting cozy, settling down, and calling what the blessings that God really is giving to them.

This is the final deal. But eye has not seen or ear heard what God has prepared for those.

Who love Him.

And so what we do is we rush it. And so we, the shining city on a hill,.

Go ahead.

The shining city on a hill, you have a continent before you, you've got able Bible teachers, you've got Reformed life and worship. What else could there be? Jesus has to be coming, you know, soon. This is the golden age.

We've got a great opportunity. And one of the things that we should learn from, as a sage once said, the only thing we learn from history is that we don't learn from history. We really need to be humble about what's it going to look like in the year 3 ,500.

I don't have any idea of what it's going to look like. I know that taking it in 500-year chunks, I believe that it's going to be a whole lot better for the gospel and for the nations and for the people of God then than now.

Just as we are in a much, our sufferings are nothing compared to what happened in the persecutions under Diocletian.

Right, but there are people in Iran, maybe, or in Turkey, who maybe have it as bad or worse.

Absolutely, yeah. The 20th century was the century of martyrdom. There were more martyrs in that century. In our stream, we have it better than they did because of what they did. We've inherited that blessing.

What I'm saying is that process can occur in all nations at all times. Subsequent generations can receive the benefit of the faithfulness of previous generations.

You have a huge ambiguity in discerning what the condition at the end will be. I do too. I'm not sure what the reaching of all the nations will be.

I prefer to call it principled ambiguity.

Okay, instead of huge.

Huge, yeah.

Ambiguity on purpose.

But it does leave open some remarkable possibilities like He could come very soon. Not like a thousand years from now. And the global south events and the massive spread of Christianity in Latin America and Asia and Africa, as thin as it may be, the books that are being written about it, the New Christendom and so on, are perhaps enough that He could come soon.

I said earlier, I suspect not, but it's certainly possible. I think it would be dangerous and arrogant to prescribe for God what He can and can't do. If this is His time, I suspect we're still in the period of the early church.

But if that's wrong, I was talking to Sam earlier, I heard, I only met Rush Dooney, the Reconstructionist guy, one time I saw him at a conference, and he said something on this with regard to the premillennial option, which I would amen heartily, and that is he said, I'm not opposed to changing my theology in mid-air.

So, we're all going to.

Be in mid-air. I think we're going to be agreed about that.

Where do we go once we meet Him in the mid-air?

There's another view.

Yes, of course, Sam.

He tried to jump the gun and now you're having to.

Wait.

I've always wanted to do penance.

In 30 seconds, distinguish, give me the outline that.

The basic distinction is that the premillennial, all the positions are named with reference to where you place the second coming of Christ with regard to the millennium. So, the premillennial view is the millennium is a thousand years apiece on Earth and Christ comes prior to the millennium, hence premillennial.

Postmillennial says that the millennium has an earthly manifestation and we can see the progress of the gospel in time and history on Earth and Christ's coming is after the millennium, postmillennial.

So, that's the basic distinction between pre and post.