Eschatology

Review: After Dispensationalism

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After Dispensationalism, Brian P. Irwin with Tim Perry. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2023.

Summary: A study of the history, key beliefs, and teachers of dispensationalism with an assessment of the movement’s strengths and weaknesses along with a treatment discussing reading prophetic and apocalyptic books within their context.

Dispensationalism has been an influential movement within American Christianity, influencing presidents and shaping policy on everything from Israel to the environment. Dispensational readings of scripture for many is understood as Christian orthodoxy, even though much of the theology is of relatively recent origin, and by no means accepted through much of church history or by much of the global church.

Brian P. Irwin, with Tim Perry, provide a text that is at once an orientation to the history, teachers, key beliefs of dispensationalism and a critical assessment, framed against a backdrop of how we ought read prophetic and apocalyptic writing. They argue that our starting place must not be today’s newspaper but rather that context and worldview of the intended recipients of these works–how they would read these works.

The first part offers a study of dispensationalism on its own terms. The authors explain and illustrate with charts the idea of dispensations. They trace history of end-times predictions throughout church history, offering these conclusions:

  • Don’t make a prediction about the end of the world.
  • Remember that the books of the Bible were not given to us first.
  • Read a biblical book as a whole for its meaning.
  • Remember that Jesus himself told us not to bother.

Irwin and Perry then discuss the key teachers of dispensationalism: J. N. Darby, C. I. Schofield, Lewis Sperry Chafer, J. Dwight Pentecost, John Walvoord, Hal Lindsey, Jack Van Impe, and Tim LaHaye, and their distinctive emphases. They offer an extended summary of the dispensational end-times story including the restoration of Israel to the promised land, the rebuilding of the Jerusalem temple, the rapture including the pre-tribulation belief of many, the judgment of the saved, the marriage feast, the great tribulation, the false prophet and dragon, the 144,000 and the two witnesses, Armageddon, and the return of Christ, the millennium and great white throne judgment, the new heaven, earth, and Jerusalem. They show the key passages for these beliefs, which helps make the case for how these are often used in isolation of their context in the books of which they are a part.

The final chapter in this section offers an assessment, both positively and negatively. They focus on the literalism that fails to read literarily, failing to recognize poetic speech and symbol, even while fostering dedication to Bible reading and study. They note the somewhat arbitrary character of “dispensations.” While the Israel/church distinction has protected the movement from anti-Semitism it has led to forms of Christian Zionism and an uncritical support of modern Israel, though it is both secular and often has unjustly treated Palestinians (including Palestinian Christians who seem invisible to much of the American church). On the one hand, this movement has fostered vibrant evangelism because of the belief in a pre-tribulation rapture. On the other hand, it has been suspicious of creation care, development, justice, and peace efforts.

Part Two focuses on how we read prophetic and apocalyptic literature. They show the connection between prophecy and the covenantal blessings and curses in the Pentateuch. Many warn Israel, in its idolatry and injustices, that God is both withdrawing blessing and bringing promised curses. They also offer material on apocalyptic passages, such as those found in Daniel, Ezekiel, and Revelation. (It should be noted that the writers accept recent scholarship on Daniel as a second century work, referencing both sixth century and near future events.)

Part Three offers three chapters of more extended studies (not commentaries) on Ezekiel, Daniel, and Revelation. The writers show the structure of each book (including a chiasmic structure for Revelation 4-19). They treat key passages cited by dispensationalists in their larger contexts, refusing to “daisy chain” references. With Revelation, they discuss historicist, preterist, futurist, idealist and their own eclectic approach to the book.

The book concludes with “thirteen theses for encountering the end of the world” encompassing both their critiques of dispensationalists approaches and their own positive approach. This is too lengthy to list here but I would particularly single out numbers 11 and 12:

11. To live in expectation of Christ’s return does not require knowing when Christ will return.

12. Questioning the idea of the rapture or other dispensational teaching is not to question the hope of Christ’s promised return in glory to a creation made fit for eternal life.

This book takes on an ambitious agenda. The writers offer both an overview and critique of dispensationalism and an alternative approach to prophetic and apocalyptic books. Each would warrant its own book. What they offer is a readable and usable resource for pastors and teachers in the church who may not have roots in dispensationalism who are confronted by those immersed in such teaching who want more teaching on “the end times.” This work helps people understand both what may be meant by this and offers approaches to favored texts in their contexts that address both our hope for Christ’s return and how early readers may have read these texts. It’s a book that matches the passion of dispensationalists for Bible study while grounding that study in sound interpretive practices that guard us from reading the newspaper into scripture while helping us read our times in light of scripture.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.

Review: The Meaning of Singleness

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The Meaning of Singleness, Danielle Treweek, foreword by Kutter Callaway. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2023.

Summary: A theology of singleness, rooted in a vision of the future, offering meaning, significance, and dignity in living as a single person within the Christian community and in the world.

Singleness. The very word carries for many a negative connotation. A single person is not married. Especially within the church. In the culture, it may mean “anything goes” and “utter freedom”, both in terms of sexuality and more generally in how one lives one’s life. For the church, singleness is often problematized. One’s sexual longings were considered so powerful that self-control and a chaste life is not thought possible for any length of time, and therefore, singles better get married. Along with this, marriage is treated as this relationship where one is “completed” in a combination of romance and sexuality, and all licitly with regard to Christian morality. Singles are just in a holding pattern, waiting for “the one.” Choosing to remain single is even perceived as an attack on marriage.

Danielle Treweek believes both marriage and singleness express important truths that anticipates the union of Christ and his church. Marriage offers a picture of that union and when the reality comes about, marriage will be no more. Likewise, singleness anticipates this future in which we all will be the bride of Christ, forgoing marriage now to live chastely and missionally, and to proclaim the future community where none of us are married but all loved by Christ.

Treweek first analyzes the contemporary context of both society and its expressive individualism of “anything goes” and the church’s context that problematizes singleness. She then proceeds to what she calls a “retrieval of singleness.” She does this by looking at singleness throughout church history, in biblical exegesis of Jesus’s interaction with the Pharisees on the resurrection and no giving in marriage in heaven, and Paul’s instructions to the Corinthians about singleness, and in Christian theology through the ages. Among many other things:

  • We discover that in the church, virginity was thought possible for both men and women, and an honorable state, and that also spoke to the married to living continently.
  • Marriage is not the remedy to burn with lust! That is not the “burn” Paul had in mind.
  • The “gift of singleness” is not some spiritual booster that means the single no longer wants sex or has supernatural self-control. Rather, whatever state you are in is God’s gift and if you are single, you have that gift and are called to live godly in our sexuality and other aspects of life.
  • Theologically, we set singleness and marriage within the movement from creation to new creation, the already and not yet in which we live our lives.

In the concluding section, Treweek works out the implications of what was retrieved. She envisions the church as a “teleosocial” movement” in which both singles (both never and formerly married) and the married recognize that Christ has formed a new society, living into its destiny, its end. It means we think of growth not only through procreation but also though discipleship of new believers in which singles (and married) can be spiritual parents. Singles also attest to our sexuality being about far more than genital experience, over and against the culture and the church’s capitulation to it.

All of this is good for the meaning of marriage as well, freeing Christian marriage from the culture’s romantic-sexual fantasy to be seen as portraying Christ’s and the church’s love and union, something far richer than what the culture has on offer. It also means re-thinking a church not formed around nuclear families, but functioning as a larger, more diverse family of singles, marrieds, widows, and children.

This is a scholarly rather than inspirational treatment of singleness, an adaptation of Treweek’s doctoral dissertation. That means working through some dense material at points. Rather than offering comfort while one “waits,” exhorts to marriage, or simply says “suck it up,” Treweek takes us on a deep dive of thinking critically about both contemporary and church culture, explores historical, biblical, and theological resources through history to retrieve riches suggesting a much richer set of resources than our culture offers. She offers a vision of singleness as whole persons with a purpose within God’s story and among God’s people.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher.

Review: 40 Questions About Heaven and Hell

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40 Questions About Heaven and Hell, Alan W. Gomes (Benjamin L.Merkle, series editor). Grand Rapids: Kregel Academic, 2019.

Summary: Addresses with clear and concise biblically based answers common questions about the afterlife: heaven, the intermediate state, the final judgment, the new creation, and hell.

What happens to us after we die? This is one of the most basic questions every human being has thought about (or tried not to think about). There are a variety of conceptions of what will happen. Some think that there isn’t anything after death. Many in the world anticipate reincarnation in some form. Others, including many Christians think of our post-mortem existence more along the lines of ancient Greeks, where an immortal spirit will reside in some kind of “heaven” in the presence of angels and God.

Alan W. Gomes offers a very practical exploration of many of the questions that arise both from these popular notions and from our reading of the Bible. The title of the book says “40 Questions” but technically, some questions are answered in two parts. Here are some of the kinds of concerns he gets into: what do we mean by soul or spirit and do one or both survive our death? What does the Bible mean when speaking of “heaven” or “hell”? What happens in the period between our death and the resurrection? Will there be rewards in heaven? Degrees of punishment? What about purgatory? What are the “new heavens and the new earth?” Will there be marriage and sex in the eternal state? How can a loving God send anyone to hell? How can we be happy if there are people suffering in hell?

This isn’t an exhaustive list but gives you the sense that you will probably find the questions you or others have asked addressed in this book. Each chapter offers a general discussion of the background of the questions and positions Christians have held, then considers biblical texts with the author’s conclusions of how scripture addresses each question. The chapters conclude with reflection questions allowing readers to review the content, as well as determine their own response to the material presented. Generally, each chapter runs between five and ten pages.

Rather than go into detail on most of the author’s answers, which would be kind of spoiler, I would observe that Gomes would tend to take a traditional approach to many of the questions in the book. What I appreciate is that he does not try to speculate on questions for which the Bible is silent. He affirms the existence of souls of believers in a conscious state prior to the resurrection. Along with other traditional and modern commentators, he believes in the resurrection of the body, and the reign of resurrected believers with Christ in the new earth, the New Jerusalem come down from heaven. He affirms both our salvation by grace, and rewards for believers on the basis of their works, their faithfulness. While acknowledging the figurative language about hell, he believes the scriptures give no warrant for anything other than eternal conscious punishment. He rejects annihilationist, and universalist proposals that have been advanced and discusses the biblical arguments that have been advanced.

I did find his answer to the question of how one could be happy knowing of others people undergoing punishment. His proposal comes down to the idea that from the perspective of eternity with God, we will see things differently–the opportunities for repentance, faith and salvation, and the sinfulness of sin. I also found it interesting that he finds no biblical warrant for the statement “he descended into hell” in many renderings of the Apostles Creed.

It’s likely that not all readers will agree with all that the author says. That, in my mind is not a reason to not buy this book. Often, those who would reject the positions the author takes actually reject poor caricatures rather than the kind of carefully argued treatments this author gives us. Particularly with questions of ultimate destiny, a book like this challenges us to examine whether our beliefs are grounded in what we would like to be true, or hopeful speculations, or grounded in what scripture has made known to us. The reflection questions leave room for the reader to wrestle with these question on his or her own, and that the reader may or may not be convinced of what the author has written. I appreciate the approach here that does not shrink from setting forth what may be hard for some to accept, while giving the reader the space to reach his or her own conclusions.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

Review: The Last Things

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the last things

The Last Things (Contours of Christian Theology), David A. Höhne. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2019.

Summary: A theology of the last things that is Trinitarian in focus, centered on the exaltation of the crucified Lord, and the preservation of the believer.

There are many books about the last things or the end times. This work takes a different approach. The author contends that the Lord’s prayer is an eschatological prayer, that the focus of each of its petitions is the full realization of the kingdom of God in the person of the crucified and risen Lord through the work of the Holy Spirit. This includes the preservation, purifying, and protection of those whose hope is in the crucified and risen Lord.

The book is written for those (all who have ever believed in Christ), are living in the Middle. It is both about what God has promised us for the future but how this is already being fulfilled in our lives. It concerns how God has already established a relationship and a people, and how we will one day be perfected.

The chapters focus around each of the petitions in the Lord’s prayer. At the same time, he discusses these through the lens of interacting with Karl Barth’s theology of the Word and Jurgen Moltman’s theology of hope. The first three petitions for the hallowing of the name, the coming of the kingdom, and the doing of God’s will on earth as in heaven are the what, how, and why of God the Father’s purposes through the Son in the Spirit. The prayers for daily bread, for forgiveness, and for deliverance focus around what we need to make it to the resurrection, and our eternal glory with Christ.

I found this the hardest “read” in the series. I think this has to do with the author’s engagement with Barth and Moltmann throughout, and a conscious effort to emphasize the work of the persons of the Trinity throughout. The introduction to the series speaks of making this accessible to educated laypeople. The author appears to assume a familiarity with Barth and Moltmann that may be true of seminarians, but probably only a minority of others. I founded the presentation stronger where the author connected themes in the Lord prayer to the rest of scripture, establishing the eschatological “arc” of this prayer.

I had looked forward to the completion of this series, this “last” volume of which had been long-awaited. While there were elements I appreciated, particularly the structuring of the work around a prayer many of us pray daily or weekly. But I had hoped for more in a series that had set a high standard of theological reflection accessible to the educated layperson. What the book did make clear is that we will not be disappointed by the God who keeps all his promises both for the exaltation of the crucified and risen Lord, and the resurrection hope of we, his people.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

Review: Death and the Afterlife

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Death and the Afterlife (New Studies in Biblical Theology), Paul R. Williamson. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2018.

Summary: A discussion of the biblical texts concerning death and what follows: the state of the dead post-mortem, the resurrection, judgement, hell, and heaven.

One of the most indisputable statistics is that one out of one die. While many other things differentiate us as human beings, the terminus of our lives is one thing we all have in common.  Our responses to this vary, from denial to despair, to mute acceptance that when we die, that is all, to some hope for continued existence beyond the grave. What we believe about these things profoundly shapes how we live.

In this monograph, Paul S. Williamson explores these questions in light of contemporary and ancient thought, and biblical teaching. He writes at the outset, “My primary focus, however, is not the theological case that proponents of various views can mount but rather the prior question: What does the Bible say?” In his opening chapter, he summarizes various views, both ancient and modern, and some of the areas disputed even by evangelical interpreters.

Following this he explores first the biblical materials surrounding what happens to us at death. While acknowledging the limits of the evidence, he recognizes the possibility of some form of post-mortem existence, although this involves a radical separation from embodied life and is thus interim. The ultimate destiny is resurrection. He considers but dismisses the idea of the dead being outside time, and thus the resurrection “immediate.” He traces the idea of resurrection and its development in later OT and intertestamental periods, to its full blossoming following the resurrection of Christ. His chapter on judgement particularly deals with tracing the idea of divine recompense for one’s deeds and how this might be reconciled with salvation by grace alone. He contends that saving faith is trust in action through persistence in doing good, that reflects the transforming work of God in our lives.

Many will turn to the final two chapters on hell, and on heaven, and the contention that ultimately all will wind up in heaven. On hell, while he argues that the language of fire and darkness may well be metaphor, we cannot ignore the language of torment that is everlasting, dismissing the language arguments that deny this. He would argue that annihilation must be read into the text. On heaven, he would contend from scripture that this is the interim resting place of those who die in Christ, but that God’s intention is for a new creation which the resurrected will inhabit. He responds to the arguments of “Gregory MacDonald” for a final universal salvation in which those in hell are brought to post-mortem repentance, showing that this case cannot be made from scripture.

The outcome of Williamson’s study is to uphold the traditional teaching of the church and contend that this is rooted in scripture. There is evidence for an interim state between death and resurrection, for the final resurrection and judgement of all and for eternal conscious punishment in hell. Following some newer interpreters, he would argue that the ultimate destiny for new believers is eternal life with God in the new creation, where heaven “comes down” to a transformed and renewed earth.

No doubt, this is contrary to what interpreters like Rob Bell (“love wins”) or “Gregory MacDonald” (“God wins”) would contend. What Williamson makes the case for is that while such opinions may be popular, they are wanting in terms of biblical evidence. For those who really care about searching such things out, this book is a good, careful statement of the traditional understanding of what scripture affirms, cautious in acknowledging what is not known, and equally cautious in not speculating on what scripture does not say. It makes clear the hope of the resurrection, how we may hear God’s “well done” in the judgment, and how one may enjoy eternal life in God’s new creation as well as warning of what faces the unrepentant. As much as we struggle with the hard truth of the latter, this book poses the question of dare we go beyond what scripture has plainly affirmed?

Review: New Creation

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New Creation

New Creation, Rodney Clapp. Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2018.

Summary: An exploration of how the end of the Christian story, or eschatology, ought shape the life of the church in this time between the comings of Christ.

“We are storied creatures, and everything happens because we lean toward endings. These endings are the goals, the pursuits, the destinies, the termination points that mark and animate our lives. Without endings we could never begin anything. We would lack plots and our lives would be without purpose, devoid of meaning” (p. 1).

This statement from the Introduction captured my attention. I’ve long felt that the Christian faith is not merely beliefs to embrace, or precepts to practice, but a story in which we find ourselves. It has seemed to me that one of the great needs of the church, and individuals within her, to understand is the story within which we live. Often, I believe that we are living in other stories, perhaps familial, or cultural, rather than the story of the kingdom.

Rodney Clapp begins this work with a summary of our story of creation, fall, the mission of Israel, the coming of the kingdom in the person of Jesus, and the kingdom yet to come. He crucially observes that the idea of kingdom implies a politics for the church–not that we so much have a politics, but that we are a politics as the people of God.

Clapp then explores a number of topics in light of “the end of the story.” He begins with a discussion of heaven, and the Christian teaching of our ultimate destiny as resurrected people caring for the new creation with heaven as a way station. He discusses our identity as a royal priesthood, that are also the temple of the living God. Every other allegiance is secondary, and releases us to identify with the powerless, those on the margins. The day will come when the lion will lay down with the lamb when the rule of the Prince of Peace is established. For now we follow Jesus by turning from violence to bear the cross of peace, even while we engage in warfare, not with people, but with the Principalities and Powers, the structures of life that oppress. We name them and refuse them our allegiance.

He moves on to prayer, reflecting on the Lord’s prayer, how prayer is the watchful waiting of the pilgrim, and how the lament and theodicies of scripture give us language to face the disjunct between our broken world and the new creation we await. He considers what our hope for the new creation means for our care for the present creation, one whose creatures God knows and provides for. He even includes a poem on “Lessons in Prayer, from a Dog,” inspired by his own dog, Merle. For many, the most interesting will be his discussion of sex in the eschaton. He proposes, in the language of the Song of Solomon, that love is indeed stronger than death, and that although the scriptures are not definitive on this, there is reason to hope for sex in the new creation, even if there is no marriage or giving in marriage. If we are resurrected bodies, he proposes that our genitalia will not be mere ornamentation!

Finally, Clapp explores the question of the last judgment, offering an interesting discussion in which he argues against eternal conscious torment as inconsistent with God’s reconciling work through the cross of Christ. He explores both the idea of conditional mortality, that the unrepentant simply cease to exist, fading to “nothingness,” and hopeful universalism, in which, after suffering judgment that purifies and redeems, all will be saved. Clapp does not commit to either of these positions, which he shows have been embraced by various parts of the church, and argues that ours is not to judge but to proclaim the good news of the kingdom. He concludes that our view of eschatology enables us to deal with the tragedies and ironies of our current existence and to live with both calmness and joy in the present time.

The book includes appendices in reading the Bible for the first time, and also some suggestions for reading Karl Barth, whose influences are evident through the book. What is so good about this book is how it deals with the misapprehensions so many have about the last things. For many, a destiny of only being ethereal spirits strumming harps is far less attractive than embodied, and perhaps sexual, creatures working in the new creation. He speaks of an end of the story that answers to our deepest longings for peace and healing the rifts within humanity and the rest of creation. His account gives us hope to face the hardships of life, and a call to a higher allegiance that transcends all earthly political engagements. Twice during the book, he makes this assertion:

“If the Republicans are the last ones caring for the unborn, the Christian will be among them. If the Greens are the last fighting for a caring stewardship of creation, the Christian will be among them. If the Democratic Socialists are the last ones fighting for the poor and the working class, the Christian will be among them. If Black Lives Matter are the last ones believing that black lives do matter, the Christians will be among them. If the relief agencies are the last ones caring for refugees, the Christian will be among them. If the pacifist anarchists are the last ones standing for peaceable alternatives to war, the Christian will be among them” (pp 45, 113).

If nothing else, Clapp is an equal opportunity offender! Readers will doubtless find something to take issue with in this brief and forthright account. Some might disagree with Clapp’s take on the last judgement. But if he provokes us to think about what the end of our story is as the people of the kingdom, in all its glory, and challenges us to shape our lives, in these tumultuous times, by this story rather than other cultural stories, then this book will have accomplished its purpose.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.