Evening of Eschatology

Then Jesus went out and departed from the temple, and His disciples came up to show Him the buildings of the temple. And Jesus said to them, "Do you not see all these things? Assuredly, I say to you, not one stone shall be left here upon another, that shall not be thrown down." ... "Tell us, when will these things be? And what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?" (Matthew 24:1–3)

An evening tour through the views of the end times—and a plea to hold them with a humble orthodoxy.

What Eschatology Is, and Why I Wanted to Teach It

I've had many questions over the last year about this topic—often not just about world events, but about my view, because there are so many different views. The word eschatology comes from two Greek words: eschatos, meaning the end or the last things, and logia, the study or thought around those things. So tonight we're considering the study of the last things.

For almost twenty years I taught at Calvary Chapel Bible College in Murrieta, including classes on Isaiah and Jeremiah. Both books are full of apocalyptic language, because Isaiah and Jeremiah personally faced apocalyptic ends for their nation. We need to understand that the word apocalyptic doesn't mean "the end" in the original sense; it means revelation. The book of Revelation is the apocalypse of Jesus Christ—it reveals Christ. We've simply attached the word to images of everything wrapping up.

How World Conditions Shape Prophetic Language

Isaiah ministered in the 8th century BC, when the Assyrian Empire was on the move. After Solomon died, his son Rehoboam—an idiot king, I know you can't imagine such things—provoked a civil war that split the nation into the southern kingdom of Judah (with Jerusalem and the temple) and the northern ten tribes. Centuries later the Assyrians destroyed the northern tribes and 46 of Judah's walled cities; only Jerusalem escaped, by divine intervention. Isaiah also prophesied that Babylon would eventually destroy Jerusalem—which happened in the 6th century BC, during Jeremiah's lifetime.

Here is a key principle: the conditions in the world during their time motivated their apocalyptic language. That doesn't mean God wasn't speaking through them—He was, and there is future implication—but the immediate language was compelled by the events of their day. The same is true of the four major eschatological views. They were each influenced significantly by the events happening to the key thinkers who proposed them. It is nearly impossible for us not to read Scripture through the lens of our own experience.

A Humble Orthodoxy

That's why I always begin with what I call a humble orthodoxy. The major issues of eschatology are non-essential doctrines. I don't mean they're unimportant—they are important—but they are not salvifically important. Whether you hold a premillennial or amillennial position does not affect your salvation. These are open-hand issues. There are people in this room who disagree with you, and by the end of the night you may disagree with me. That should never determine your fellowship with other Christians.

There's an old saying often attributed to Augustine, though it doesn't actually appear in his writings until about 1,200 years later: "In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; in all things, charity." If you're discussing end-times things and your blood pressure is rising and your voice is getting louder, take a break. We are not Bible-code cryptographers—and frankly, a lot of dispensational theology looks more like Bible-code cryptography than biblical interpretation. We are students of the Bible, seeking the plain meaning of the text and holding it with an open hand.

Starting with Jesus: The Olivet Discourse

I always start with Jesus. The Olivet Discourse—Matthew 24–25 and Luke 17—was delivered on the Mount of Olives. The context matters. In Matthew 23 Jesus had just called the religious leaders hypocrites and liars repeatedly. As He left the temple, His disciples tried to bring down the temperature, pointing out the beautiful buildings Herod had built. Jesus said, "Do you not see all these things? Assuredly, I say to you, not one stone shall be left here upon another, that shall not be thrown down."

That was a staggering prediction. The temple was the center of Jewish life; it had been destroyed by Babylon, rebuilt under Ezra and Nehemiah, and expanded by Herod into a wonder of the world. For Jesus to say it would all be thrown down was like predicting the World Trade Center towers would fall while they still stood. As He walked east toward Bethany—where He stayed at Lazarus's house on the back side of the Mount of Olives—His disciples asked privately, "When will these things be? And what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?" Notice they assumed the fall of Jerusalem was the end of the age. We now know, 2,000 years later, that these are not the same event.

A Prophecy Literally Fulfilled

This prophecy, like many in Scripture, has multiple fulfillments. The early fulfillment came in August of AD 70, when the Roman general Titus laid siege to Jerusalem and destroyed the temple—within forty years of Jesus's words. You can go to Rome today and see the Arch of Titus, which depicts the temple's golden candlestick being carried back in a Roman triumph.

Understanding the Roman triumph is important. When a general won a campaign, the citizens went out to meet him and escorted him back into the city in a victory parade, treating him almost as a deity. Paul uses this very triumphal language about Jesus's second coming—"we shall meet Him in the air" and return with Him. The picture we associate with the rapture is actually Roman triumphalist language.

Just south of the Western Wall today, at the excavated first-century ground level, you can see the very stones of the temple lying in deep depressions in the ancient road, exactly as Jesus said—"not one stone left upon another." This is one reason skeptical scholars like Bart Ehrman argue the Gospels were written after AD 70: how else could Jesus have known? He could have known because He is God incarnate, and the internal and historical evidence supports a date before AD 70.

What Else Jesus Said About His Coming

Jesus continued: "For as the lightning comes from the east and flashes to the west, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be. For wherever the carcass is, there the eagles will be gathered together." That word "eagles" is better translated vultures—a key verse we'll return to. "Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken."

This language—the sun darkened, the moon withholding its light—is a prophetic landmark pointing to the day of the Lord, the same imagery used by Ezekiel, Jeremiah, and Isaiah. The day of the Lord is any time God intervenes in human affairs for judgment: Sodom and Gomorrah, the Flood. There are minor fulfillments, and then there is the great and terrible day of the Lord, when the whole earth comes under judgment (read Isaiah 24). The most literal source of this imagery is the burning of a conquered city—smoke rising and darkening sun and moon. This is not about solar and lunar eclipses; people who say that don't understand biblical motif language.

Jesus is also reaching back to Daniel: "Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven... and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory." He used this same Daniel prophecy before the high priest, claiming to be the Messiah—which is why the priest accused Him of blasphemy. The trumpet, the gathering of the elect from the four winds—all of this is Jesus describing His return and the gathering of His people, the same triumph Paul describes.

Why We Confess "He Will Come Again"

For 2,000 years Christians have affirmed, as we did all summer in the Nicene Creed, that "He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and His kingdom will have no end." We believe this because Jesus said it through John's apocalypse: "Behold, I am coming quickly... I am the Alpha and the Omega... Surely I am coming quickly" (Revelation 22). The problem is that was a long time ago, and during 2,000 years of waiting we've developed different lenses through which we view prophecy.

The Four Interpretive Lenses

Christians generally view prophecy through four lenses, and when I teach Isaiah I try to employ all four, even though I lean toward one.

The futurist lens believes some prophetic events are still future—this is my primary lens. The historicist lens reads Revelation as describing events across the last 2,000 years of church history; for example, it sees the seven letters of Revelation 2–3 as seven successive church ages, with us living in the lukewarm Laodicean age. The preterist lens (from Latin praeter, "past") holds that the prophecies of the Olivet Discourse were fulfilled in the lead-up to AD 70 under Nero, identifying Nero as the antichrist whose name equals 666 in Hebrew gematria. The idealist lens sees apocalyptic literature as picturing the timeless struggle between good and evil. Even if you have a predominant view, considering all four will give you a broader understanding.

The Millennium and the Four Views

All these views center on a key event: the millennium, the thousand-year period of Revelation 20.

Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, having the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. He laid hold of the dragon, that serpent of old, who is the Devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years... And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for their witness to Jesus... And they lived and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. (Revelation 20:1–4)

Four theories about Christ's return surround this millennium, and each arose at a particular moment in history. Historic premillennialism (1st–3rd centuries) takes Revelation 20 literally: Jesus returns triumphantly, binds Satan, and reigns on earth for a literal thousand years. This was the view of the early church—Paul, John, Irenaeus, Justin Martyr—who were suffering persecution and looking for Jesus to come and vindicate them.

Then in the 4th century everything changed. Constantine became a Christian; the Edict of Milan (313) legalized Christianity; the Council of Nicaea (325) gave us the Nicene Creed. When you no longer live under persecution, your interpretation changes. Augustine wrote The City of God and developed amillennialism—the Greek alpha negating a literal millennium—teaching that there is no literal thousand years but that Christ reigns now from heaven. This held sway from roughly the 4th to the 15th centuries. Notice: it wasn't that Augustine was a better theologian than the premillennialists; the conditions of the world had changed, and so did the theology.

From Postmillennialism to Dispensationalism

The 16th–19th centuries brought the Enlightenment, the Reformation's missions movement, scientific advance, and a new optimism. This produced postmillennialism: the sense that we live after the millennium, that tribulation is behind us, and that the church's task is to establish Christ's kingdom through missionary effort and the spread of Western ideals before Jesus returns. The colonies looked like a new spiritual Jerusalem. That optimism lasted until the 1860s.

Then came the Civil War, two World Wars, and—beginning in the 1890s—the Zionist movement, led by men like Theodor Herzl, gathering Jews back to the land. Suddenly all the texts Augustine and the postmillennialists had spiritualized looked like they were being literally fulfilled. Men like John Nelson Darby and the Scofield Reference Bible shifted from postmillennialism to dispensationalism. Again, the conditions of the world reshaped how people read prophecy. People mock dispensationalists as "newspaper" or "YouTube eschatologists," but every one of these movements, going all the way back to Augustine, adapted its interpretation to current events.

Dispensationalism revives the futurist drama of premillennialism—it's premillennialism with a twist. It envisions history climaxing in a series of dramatic divine interventions: a sudden gathering of the church (the rapture), a period of tribulation, Christ's victorious return, and His reign over a restored Israel and the nations. Israel declared independence on May 14, 1948, under David Ben-Gurion just outside Tel Aviv. Central to dispensationalism are the rapture and the tribulation.

Cross Connection's Position—and Mine

Our statement of faith makes our position clear: we believe in the second coming of Jesus Christ, His personal, visible return to the earth and the establishment of His millennial kingdom, and in the bodily resurrection of all humanity unto final judgment—eternal blessing for the righteous and eternal suffering for the wicked. So we are futurist and we hold a millennial position—but we hold it with an open hand. We have amillennial and postmillennial folks among us, and that's fine; we grew out of Calvary Chapel and are connected with the Southern Baptist Convention, both heavily dispensational.

Here's what may surprise you: I am not a dispensationalist. I grew up under it—I read the entire Left Behind series, and so did my mom and my sister; Nicolae Carpathia, page-burners, the whole thing. Most people's eschatology is based more on Left Behind or Hal Lindsey's The Late Great Planet Earth than on the Bible. Until I was about twenty I assumed the pre-tribulational rapture was the only view. Then I began studying the Scriptures rather than Tim LaHaye, Jerry Jenkins, and even Chuck Smith—whom I love, but who had an interpretive model.

What troubled me as a young man hoping one day to marry and raise a family was the gleeful excitement some respected teachers showed when describing two-thirds of the world being suddenly destroyed. That didn't jive with Scripture. As I studied, I landed on historic premillennialism—the view of the early church. It maintains a futurist perspective, seeks an optimistic eschatology (Jesus will come, rule, reign, and wipe away every tear), and refuses to be distracted by speculative, imaginative interpretations, letting the text speak for itself.

The Question of Wrath

You can be a biblically faithful Christian and hold any of these views. But the two middle views—amillennial and postmillennial, which are largely preterist—require an early authorship of Revelation, before AD 70. The internal, external, and historical evidence (Irenaeus says John wrote during Domitian's reign, around AD 95) supports a later date. An honest amillennialist or postmillennialist will admit this; in a recent conversation, postmillennialist Jeff Durbin acknowledged to Costi Hinn, "If the early date of Revelation is wrong, then my position is wrong." So the futurist views—premillennial and dispensational—fit the later date.

Dispensationalists hold one of several views, all tied to the rapture and the tribulation. The tribulation appears to be one week of years—seven years, divisible into two 3½-year periods, with many calling the second half "the great tribulation." You might be pre-tribulational (rapture before the seven years), mid-tribulational (3½ years in), post-tribulational (right before His return), pre-wrath, or jokingly pan-tribulational ("it'll all pan out").

Every one of these is built on 1 Thessalonians 5:9: "God did not appoint us to wrath." So the dividing question is: when is wrath poured out? And: does tribulation equal wrath? Christians have experienced tribulation for 1,900 years. You in America are the privileged, abnormal ones who've enjoyed religious freedom and never suffered persecution—so you assume any suffering must be "the tribulation" God would never allow. But all Christians, in nearly every place and age, have experienced tribulation. Tribulation and wrath are not the same thing.

Tracing Wrath Through Revelation

Go through Revelation and find where wrath is poured out. The first mention is Revelation 6, which seems early—but read the perspective. It's the kings, the great men, the rich, the mighty, and slaves hiding in caves, crying for the rocks to fall on them to hide them "from the wrath of the Lamb." This is humanity's perspective on its own suffering, not God declaring He is pouring out wrath.

Then in Revelation 11 the seventh angel sounds: "The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ." The twenty-four elders—who seem to represent the church—worship and say, "The nations were angry, and Your wrath has come, and the time of the dead, that they should be judged." This is near the end, just before Christ's return, when the time of judgment comes.

That brings us to the key passage where my view really comes from, Revelation 14:

Then I looked, and behold, a white cloud, and on the cloud sat One like the Son of Man, having on His head a golden crown, and in His hand a sharp sickle. And another angel came out of the temple, crying with a loud voice to Him who sat on the cloud, "Thrust in Your sickle and reap, for the time has come for You to reap, for the harvest of the earth is ripe."

The One on the cloud is Jesus—Daniel's Son of Man. A messenger comes from the Father in the heavenly temple and tells the Son, "Now is the time; gather the harvest." So Jesus reaps the harvest of grain—the elect. Then another angel with a sharp sickle is told, "Gather the clusters of the vine of the earth, for her grapes are fully ripe," and they are thrown "into the great winepress of the wrath of God." There are two gatherings—two "raptures," if you will: a gathering of the righteous, and a gathering of the grapes of wrath.

Isaiah and Revelation Together

This connects to Isaiah 63, written 700–800 years earlier. Isaiah's vantage point is Jerusalem, not heaven. "Who is this who comes from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah... glorious in His apparel, traveling in the greatness of His strength?" Standing on the temple mount, Isaiah looks southeast toward Edom and sees One coming. The figure answers, "I who speak in righteousness, mighty to save." If that's not Jesus, I don't know who is. Isaiah asks why His garments are red like one who treads the winepress, and He replies, "I have trodden the winepress alone... for the day of vengeance is in My heart, and the year of My redeemed has come." Isaiah sees Him coming back over the Mount of Olives after the day of vengeance—the same scene John sees from heaven before Christ treads the winepress.

You will not understand Revelation without the Old Testament prophets; there are hundreds of references to Isaiah, Ezekiel, Jeremiah, and Daniel. The same figure appears in Revelation 19: "Behold, a white horse. And He who sat on him was called Faithful and True... He was clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and His name is called The Word of God... He Himself treads the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God... KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS."

How I Read "One Taken, One Left"

You know the passage in Luke 17 and Matthew 24: two grinding at the mill, two in bed, two on the roof—one taken, the other left. You're commonly told this is the rapture. But the disciples asked, "Where, Lord?" and Jesus answered, "Where the carcass is, there the vultures will be gathered together." The ones taken are taken as the grapes of wrath to judgment. Right after Revelation 19:16, the birds feast on the flesh of the judged.

So here is my interpretation: there will be a time of great trouble leading up to the second coming. Jesus will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and the trumpet of God; the dead in Christ will rise, and we who are alive and remain—if we are alive and remain—will be caught up to meet Him in the air in His triumphant return to the earth, just like the Roman triumph Paul describes. We are not appointed to wrath, but we look forward to the second coming. Do I think there's a secret rapture seven years earlier? I don't. If you do, God bless you—and if I'm wrong, you can tell me on the way up, and I'll say, "Praise God." The church has experienced tribulation throughout its history. Hold your view with an open hand, and don't divide over it. Very solid, faithful Christians—David Guzik, my friend Lance Ralston—don't hold my position, and we joke about it. That's perfectly fine. But know your view and be able to defend it from Scripture—don't tell me about Nicolae Carpathia, or I might smack you.

Questions and Answers

Will a third temple be built? It sure seems like there will be one before Christ comes. Israel could reinstitute sacrifices almost immediately with a tabernacle—they already have the instruments built and don't even need the temple mount; the tabernacle stood in Shiloh for centuries. People get worked up over the red heifer and similar speculation, but a temple does seem necessary before the second coming.

What happened to the faithful who died before Christ? There is no salvation apart from Christ's sacrifice, so they awaited its coming fulfillment and looked forward to the resurrection. Jesus's account of the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16) is our best window—the rich man (clothed in linen and purple, the high priest's family) in torment, and Lazarus carried to Abraham's bosom, a place of comfort, with a great gulf between. Many believe in the "harrowing of hell": after His death Jesus descended to that place of comfort and led the captives to be with Him, for to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.

Will evil be permanently or only temporarily defeated? In the premillennial view, Satan is bound a thousand years, loosed at the end for one final rebellion, then completely judged. During the millennium there is sanctioned righteousness; the final judgment at the great white throne casts death and hell into the lake of fire—the second death—after which we live in the eternal kingdom with no more sin or suffering.

Why study eschatology if we can't know the day or hour? Because it should inspire our hope and our continued work for the kingdom. Jesus answers this very question at the end of the discourse with three parables teaching us to be waiting, watching, and working, so that He may find us doing so and say, "Well done, good and faithful servants." Premillennialists live in anticipation of His coming. Postmillennialists do not—they see it as the church's job to establish the kingdom on earth. Christian nationalism generally falls into a postmillennial view, and as a Baptist who believes in the separation of church and state, I have real concerns about it. We are ambassadors of a heavenly kingdom seeking to win people, not to establish His kingdom by force.

**Matthew 24 versus Revelation?** Look for the similarities and overlap with Ezekiel and Daniel; the prophetic language markers connect, and I see far more overlap than difference.

How should believers live in light of His possible return? As Jesus says in those parables. And note: many in our Protestant evangelical circle have an aversion to social involvement, but Jesus said giving a cup of cold water, clothing the naked, visiting the sick and imprisoned, is done unto Him. The church should share the goods of the gospel kingdom with the world—never to the negation of preaching the gospel, but the postmillennial impulse to separate into Christian conclaves doesn't follow the gospel's call.

Can we pray for the dead? "It is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment." Either we believe Hebrews or we don't. I'm increasingly convinced from near-death accounts that God is incredibly gracious, pursuing mercy to the last possible moment—but there is a real judgment, and we should live as if it is real. Prophetic literature speaks of "the year of My redeemed" and "the day of His wrath," telling us something about God's nature: His wrath is total but brief, while His mercy and grace have been very long. He has waited 2,000 years because He is slow to anger.

Can we know the season? Jesus speaks of times and seasons. There's a reasonable—not airtight—argument that the feasts of Leviticus 23 mirror God's moving. The spring feasts (Passover, Unleavened Bread, First Fruits) point to Christ's first coming—the Passover Lamb, the sinless offering, the First Fruits from the dead. Pentecost answers to the outpouring of the Spirit. The fall feasts (Trumpets and Tabernacles) may connect to the second coming. There are valid points there, but every analogy eventually breaks down.

In the millennium, is there a second chance? The hardest question for premillennialists is: where do the people ruled during the thousand years come from? My friend Justin Alfred once answered in his thick Mississippi accent, "the back door"—which I don't think is the answer. The predominant view is that only those who actively opposed Christ are gathered as the grapes of wrath, while the apathetic survive into the millennial reign. Strangely, at the end of the thousand years those same people are given the chance to rebel under a released devil—and are judged. Scripture leaves many of these questions unanswered.

Fear-based evangelism. This is a great question. There's a distinct difference between Calvary Chapel before and after 1973. The early years were deeply evangelistic. Then came the Yom Kippur War of 1973 and Hal Lindsey's The Late Great Planet Earth, the best-selling book of the decade. Chuck Smith's teaching became heavily eschatology-focused, and the impetus to come to Christ became escaping coming judgment. Reasoning from the fig tree parable—a generation being forty years from Israel's 1948 statehood—people predicted the second coming in 1988 and the rapture in 1981 (there was even a book, 88 Reasons Why the Rapture Will Be in 1988). Some quit college and jobs and put their lives on hold; many of that cohort aren't walking strongly with the Lord today. Date-setting and fear-mongering deeply concern me. Our gospel motive should be the joy and hope of the second coming, not "the end is coming, repent quickly."

The abomination of desolation indicates there will likely be a temple and an individual we identify as the Antichrist who desecrates a future Jewish temple, apparently at the midpoint of the tribulation (1,260 days, 42 months).

Animals in heaven? The Bible is largely silent, but Isaiah 11 pictures the millennial kingdom with lions, lambs, and a child near the cobra's den. So there appear to be animals in that glorious time—maybe your pet will be waiting. (Some of you are hoping your pet goes the other way.)

Should we watch Israel for future biblical events? This is a hot, third-rail issue. It's difficult because of the Holocaust and because "Jewish" is at once a religion, a nationality, and a modern state—which is true of no other people. Criticizing the American government isn't anti-American, but criticizing the Knesset or the prime minister gets you labeled anti-Semitic—even though Jewish citizens in their own democratic state protest and criticize their government vigorously. As a premillennialist, I take the references to Israel in Revelation literally, as connected to the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; in 1820 those texts were spiritualized because there was no state of Israel, but now there is. Yet the modern state is one of the most secular in the world—pro-LGBTQ and pro-abortion. We can affirm that the Jewish people have a biblical, millennia-old right to the land without giving them a pass on everything they do, and saying so is not anti-Semitic—it's Christian. We should grieve over the suffering in Gaza just as we grieve over Ukraine; war is terrible wherever it plays out. And yes, they will play a part in what unfolds, and many of them will come to faith—"they will look on Him whom they have pierced," as Zechariah says.

Will people live a thousand years in the millennium? That portion uses poetic language, but it says one who dies at a hundred will be thought a child, so there does seem to be extended life. I don't know how literally to read it. We'll see.

Closing Prayer

God, I ask that You would help us have a humble orthodoxy in the way we think about these things. In our conversations, may we not be seduced into a sensational reading of every event—from Donald Trump or Mike Johnson or Benjamin Netanyahu or Vladimir Putin—and may we not fall into the strange date-setting that actually drove the shift from premillennialism to amillennialism. Lord, help us to be diligent students of the Scriptures, rightly dividing the word of truth, holding these things with biblical reasons but with an open hand, never bludgeoning people with them or dividing over them.

Help us to be faithful to the Scriptures and to fulfill what You've called us to do—waiting, watching, and working—that we would hear You say, "Well done, good and faithful servants." Maybe You return in our lifetime; maybe in five hundred years. We have no idea. But Lord, to be absent from the body is to be present with You, so each of us will have our own personal second coming when we meet You, and we look forward to being in Your presence and in Your kingdom. Until then, help us to be ambassadors of Your kingdom here and now. We pray in Jesus's name. Amen.