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An Amillennial Interpretation of Zechariah 14 (2 of 8)

by | Feb 28, 2019 | Eschatology

Post #2 “Zechariah 14:1–5: The Lord’s Coming to Jerusalem,” Part 1

Post 1

            The opening verses of chapter 14 portray the final conflict between the nations and the holy city. This conflict culminates in the sudden arrival of the Lord God and his heavenly hosts.

1 Behold, a day is coming for the Lord when the spoil taken from you will be divided among you. 2 For I will gather all the nations against Jerusalem to battle, and the city will be captured, the houses plundered, the women ravished and half of the city exiled, but the rest of the people will not be cut off from the city. 3 Then the Lord will go forth and fight against those nations, as when He fights on a day of battle. 4 In that day His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, which is in front of Jerusalem on the east; and the Mount of Olives will be split in its middle from east to west by a very large valley, so that half of the mountain will move toward the north and the other half toward the south. 5 You will flee by the valley of My mountains, for the valley of the mountains will reach to Azel; yes, you will flee just as you fled before the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah. Then the Lord, my God, will come, and all the holy ones with Him![1]

Verse 2 puts this final conflict into proper perspective: the Lord himself “will gather all the nations against Jerusalem to battle.” This time when God gathers his enemies against his people “for the war of the great day of God, the Almighty” (Rev. 16:14) is prophesied in several places throughout scripture (cf. Ezek. 38:1–23; 39:1–6; Joel 3:2; Rev. 16:12–16; 19:19; 20:8–9). Here we must focus on the unique picture which Zechariah paints of this event.

The nations gather and battle against Jerusalem, and they are initially successful. They capture the city, loot the houses, rape the women, and even succeed in carrying away captive half the inhabitants. Still, the other half of the city’s people will not be killed or exiled. Why? The Lord himself will appear on the scene and catch the nations in their heinous act of desecration; and when God arrives, he will descend in full battle array. When he touches down on the earth right outside the walls of Jerusalem, the Mount of Olives will split to form a valley, a way of escape for the beleaguered inhabitants of the city. John MacKay explains verse 2 this way: “The message is that the future of the church will involve a time when it will be surrounded by its enemies and seemingly overwhelmed by them…. Under the metaphor of the pillaging of an ancient city, the church is presented as suffering grievously at the hands of her enemies, and yet there has been a remnant left.”[2]

The reference to the Mount of Olives should remind us of Ezekiel’s words, written a generation before Zechariah’s time. MacKay makes the connection when discussing verse 4:

‘His feet’ indicates a theophany, perhaps one where the presence of God causes the earth to shake (Ps. 68:8; 97:4; Micah 1:3–4; Nahum 1:3, 5). The addition ‘east of Jerusalem’ – which was scarcely needed to locate this well-known hill – links this vision with that granted to Ezekiel when the Lord’s glory left Jerusalem and ‘stopped above the mountain east of it’ (Ezek. 11:23). The Lord whose visible presence with his people had then ceased now returns in power, as was similarly forecast in Ezekiel 43:2. It is not of course to some reconstructed city that he comes, but to the New Jerusalem which is the reality symbolised in these visions. It is the city that bears the name ‘the Lord is there’ (Ezek. 48:35).[3]

Dean Davis further opines, “Verse 4 pictures the LORD creating an unexpected way of escape for his people; verse 5 pictures them using it…. Quite intentionally, the imagery used here reminds us of Israel’s miraculous deliverance at the Red Sea (Exodus 14:1ff).”[4]

            But what about the details of the earthquake and Azel, and should we expect the Lord Jesus to descend upon the literal hill called the Mount of Olives? These questions will be answered in the next post.

[1] All scripture quotations are taken from the nasb Updated Edition of 1995.

[2] Ibid., 303–304.

[3] Ibid., 305. Cf. also Andrew E. Hill, Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi: An Introduction and Commentary, Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries, ed. David G. Firth, vol. 28 (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2012), 261.

[4] Dean Davis, The High King of Heaven: Discovering the Master Keys to the Great End Time Debate (Enumclaw, WA: Redemption Press, 2014), 397. Cf. also Barry G. Webb, The Message of Zechariah, The Bible Speaks Today, ed. J. A. Motyer (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2003), 179.

An Amillennial Interpretation of Zechariah 14 (1 of 8)

An Amillennial Interpretation of Zechariah 14 (1 of 8)

by | Feb 26, 2019 | Eschatology

Post #1 “The Need for an Amillennial Approach”

The last chapter of Zechariah tends to be neglected by amillennialists, especially in comparison to the emphasis given it by premillennialists. While amillennialists anticipate a single consummation and glorification of God’s kingdom in connection with the single Second Coming of the Lord Jesus, premillennialists use texts like Zechariah 14 to argue for an intermediate reign of Jesus upon the present earth. Such a reign would separate the Second Coming from the eternal perfection of God’s kingdom by at least a thousand years (a time period taken from Revelation 20). The dispensational variety of premillennialism particularly insists upon a strictly literal reading of Zechariah and other Old Testament apocalyptic literature. The result is a Second Coming which radically subjugates sinners and improves their fallen world without banishing sin and death entirely.

Such a “millennial” reign is a problem for the amillennialist because it contradicts the straightforward eschatology of the New Testament. The apostles and prophets and Jesus himself all declare that the very event of Christ’s return will be the end of sin and death. The Second Coming immediately brings the final separation of the righteous from the wicked, the end of the opportunity for repentance, and the eternal glory of a new creation freed from sin’s curse. Further problems also arise when a dispensational hermeneutic is applied to Zechariah 14. Because the role of apocalyptic symbolism is minimized, the result is a renewed Judaism, complete with temple worship and required annual feasts. Although some details may differ from earlier historical iterations, this is essentially the Mosaic system of worship resurrected. It would be a titanic reversal of Christ’s blood-bought accomplishments and a return to those types and shadows which his priestly work has rendered obsolete (Heb. 7:18–22; 8:13; 9:8–10; 10:1, 8–9, 18). A premillennial interpretation of Zechariah’s last chapter, especially that demanded by dispensational literalism, is clearly untenable when seen through the lens of the New Testament.

For these reasons, an interpretation is needed which does not posit an intermediate messianic reign including renewed Judaism and the lingering effects of Adam’s fall. The interpreter must understand that the Old Testament prophets often foretold New Testament realities through the symbolic use of Old Covenant language. A woodenly literal hermeneutic cannot consistently explain such prophecies as that of Malachi 1:11: “For from the rising of the sun even to its setting, My name will be great among the nations, and in every place incense is going to be offered to My name, and a grain offering that is pure; for My name will be great among the nations,” says the Lord of hosts.” On the one hand, literal aspects of the Old Covenant such as incense and grain offerings could only be legitimately performed at the authorized location of the Jerusalem temple. On the other hand, the New Covenant era renders such a sacrificial system obsolete. However, once the interpreter acknowledges that the Spirit speaking through Malachi used Old Covenant institutions as pictures of future, New Covenant realities, Malachi’s words harmonize well with those of Jesus recorded in John 4:21 and 23: “Woman, believe Me, an hour is coming when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father…. But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers.”

Similarly, the apocalyptic mention of Jerusalem in Zechariah 14 must be allowed to point beyond the earthly city of David. “For here we do not have a lasting city, but we are seeking the city which is to come” (Heb. 13:14). Indeed, those in the New Testament church already “have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem” (Heb. 12:22). We are not of the old Sinai covenant “which corresponds to the present Jerusalem”; we are of the new covenant corresponding to “the Jerusalem above” who “is our mother” (Gal. 4:24–26). James the Lord’s brother points to the prophecy of Amos and thus confirms that God has rebuilt and restored the ruined tabernacle of David so that the Gentiles may seek the Lord and be called by his name (Acts 15:13–18). The nations are now joining themselves to Zion, the redeemed city of God, the New Testament church of Jesus Christ. If James and the other apostles could confidently use such a hermeneutic, so can we. This hermeneutic will provide us with an amillennial interpretation of Zechariah 14. Concerning Old Testament promises fulfilled after Christ’s First Advent, John MacKay rightly says, “The realisation is in terms of the heirs and successors of the Old Testament Zion, Jerusalem and Israel. This is not to rewrite the promise, but to satisfy it in its fullest and proper extent.”[1]

Beginning with the next post, this blog series will present such an amillennial approach to the last chapter of the Book of Zechariah.

 

[1] John L. MacKay, Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi: God’s Restored People, Focus on the Bible Commentary Series (Fearn, Ross-shire, Scotland, Great Britain: Christian Focus, 2010), 417.

John Murray and the Covenant of Works (4 of 4)

John Murray and the Covenant of Works (4 of 4)

by | Feb 14, 2019 | Systematic Theology

Part 1  Part 2  Part 3

In this final post I want to say something else in defense of John Murray’s orthodoxy in spite of his hesitation over the terminology “Covenant of Works” and preference for the terminology “Adamic Administration.” So …

John Murray was not led into error or heterodox views of justification by his hesitations over the terminology, Covenant of Works.  I have already pointed out that John Murray clearly taught in contradistinction to those with whom he is sometimes associated double imputation and the distinction between the active and passive obedience of Christ.[1]  But perhaps no doctrine is more often undermined in the departures from justification sola fide in modern evangelicalism than the doctrine of the traditional meaning of faith alone.  There is the constant tendency to define the exercise of justifying faith as including the faithfulness of obedience to God’s command and including this faithfulness in the quality by which it justifies.  In Redemption: Accomplished and Applied Murray begins by affirming that “In faith we receive and rest upon Christ alone for salvation.”[2] He goes on to define such faith in a perfectly traditional way as knowledge (notitia), conviction (assensus), and trust (fiducia).[3]  He concludes: “It is to be remembered that the efficacy of faith does not reside in itself.  Faith is not something that merits the favour of God.  All the efficacy of faith unto salvation resides in the Saviour.  As one has aptly and truly stated the case, it is not faith that saves but faith in Jesus Christ; strictly speaking, it is not even faith in Christ that saves but Christ that saves through faith.”[4]

Let us not be guilty of what the Apostle Paul (1 Timothy 6:4) calls “logomachy” (fighting about words) in our defense of orthodox views of justification and the Covenant of Works.  Let us rather judge by righteous judgment and not make John Murray a sinner, as the saying goes, ‘for a word.’ We run the risk of imbibing a prejudice which will steal from us the treasure which John Murray’s writings are to the church.

[1] I am thinking of the implications left by Mark Karlberg when he says that Murray’s hand-picked successor At Westminster was Norman Shepherd: Mark Karlberg, Gospel Grace: The Modern-day Controversy (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2003), 262.

[2] Murray, Redemption, 106.

[3] Murray, Redemption, 110-112.

[4] Murray, Redemption, 112.

John Murray and the Covenant of Works (4 of 4)

John Murray and the Covenant of Works (3 of 4)

by | Feb 8, 2019 | Systematic Theology

In my last post I began to defend John Murray’s orthodoxy by saying that Murray’s concerns about the terminology, Covenant of Works, must be properly understood and not exaggerated.  Now let me come to a second point in my defense of Murray. So …

Second, John Murray holds everything essential to what was called the Covenant of Works.  Indeed, let me go further.  I think he holds more than some defenders of the Covenant of Works hold of the things that are associated with the Covenant of Works.  Further, I think he holds these things more consistently than such people.

It is, of course, indisputable that John Murray taught the representative headship of Adam.  This is the master concept which was embodied in the historic Covenant of Works formulation.  This involved a commitment to several crucial conceptions associated with the Covenant of Works.

  • He taught (in contrast to modern heterodoxy exemplified in Daniel Fuller, Norman Shepherd, and the New Perspective on Paul) the imputation of Adam’s sin. No doubt can be entertained about this.  His statements in “The Adamic Administration” make this clear,[1] but the entirety of his treatment of this subject in his masterful The Imputation of Adam’s Sin makes this irrefutable.[2]
  • He taught (in contrast to modern heterodoxy exemplified in Daniel Fuller, Norman Shepherd, and the New Perspective on Paul) double imputation and the associated distinction between the active and passive obedience of Christ. Not only do his statements in “The Adamic Administration” exemplify this,[3] but the emphasis he lays on the obedience of Christ as the master category under which the work of Christ is to be understood in Redemption: Accomplished and Applied makes this irrefutably clear.  There he asserts that this master category enables us to see clearly the distinction between the active and passive obedience of Christ.[4]
  • He taught (in contrast to modern heterodoxy exemplified in Daniel Fuller, Norman Shepherd, and the New Perspective on Paul) the reward of life. Murray makes it indisputably clear in “The Adamic Administration” that the reward of life is more than the continuation of the life with which Adam was created.  Murray says simply: “The tree of life represented everlasting life (Gen. 3:22). But it could not have this application unless there had been some provision connected with Eden which contemplated such life.”[5]  In case this is not clear enough, Murray earlier argues that Adam had not partaken of the tree of life.  This conclusion is necessary for Murray because he regard the rewarded of life as more than the life which Adam possessed in the Garden. He argues: “Although from Genesis 3:22 we infer that Adam had not partaken of the tree of life, and although it was not forbidden as the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (cf. Gen. 2:16), yet, apparently, by the arrangements of providence or of revelation, it was recognized as reserved for the issue of probationary obedience.  This would explain Genesis 3:22, 24 (cf. Rev. 2:7; 22:2, 14, especially the expression “the right to the tree of life.”[6]

 

[1] Murray, Collected Writings, Volume Two, 50-51, 57-58.

[2] John Murray, The Imputation of Adam’s Sin (Nutley, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing, 1977).

[3] Murray, Collected Writings, Volume Two, 58.

[4]John Murray, Redemption: Accomplished and Applied (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 1961), 19-21.

[5]Murray, Collected Writings, Volume Two, 54.

[6] Murray, Collected Writings, Volume Two, 48.

John Murray and the Covenant of Works (4 of 4)

John Murray and the Covenant of Works (2 of 4)

by | Feb 5, 2019 | Systematic Theology

Part 1

In my first post I noted the important connection between orthodox views of the Covenant of Works and the doctrine of justification.  This brings me to John Murray.  John Murray famously questioned the traditional terminology or verbal description of the relation between God and Adam as a Covenant of Works.  Over the years I have come to believe that his caution regarding the traditional description of the relation between God and Adam as a Covenant of Works was unnecessary.  I believe that the relation between God and Adam may be described as a “Covenant.”  I believe that (properly understood and clarified) this relation may even be described as one of “Works.”  At any rate, I am willing to acknowledge the historical momentum of this terminology, Covenant of Works and use it happily. Clearly, however, Murray’s hesitations about this terminology have misled some with regard to the true tendencies of his theological trajectory.  I think—and always have thought—that for substance Murray holds everything essential to what was called the Covenant of Works.  I certainly do not believe that his hesitations about the traditional terminology led to any error or heterodoxy regarding the doctrine of justification.

 

These two assertions require some defense.  Let me now provide that.

 

First, Murray’s concerns about the terminology, Covenant of Works, must be properly understood and not exaggerated.  We must not react to his hesitations without appreciating their nature.  Murray expresses these hesitations in two major places.  They are expressed in an article entitled, “Covenant Theology.”[1]  This article may now be found in volume four of his Collected Writings.  They are also and more briefly expressed in the introduction to his article entitled, “The Adamic Administration.”[2]  This may now be found in volume two of his Collected Writings.  Let me say several things about these hesitations.

 

  • In “The Adamic Administration” the first thing that Murray says about the terminology, Covenant of Works, is that it is not “felicitous.”[3] No one perhaps has ever used the English language more carefully than Murray.  Thus, his description of this terminology as not “felicitous” must be carefully noted.  This is not a scathing or wholesale rejection of the terminology or what it represents.  The terminology is in his view simply not “happy.”
  • The reason for the unhappiness of this terminology is that for Murray “the elements of grace entering into the administration are not properly provided for by the term ‘works’.”[4] For Murray, ‘works’ connotes the idea that the reward promised in the Adamic Administration was strictly merited or earned.  Murray is of the opinion, and I think that he is right in this opinion, that the reward of life would have been in no way strictly earned by the obedience of Adam.  In “Covenant Theology” Murray remarks: “The promise was that of the greatest felicity in heaven.  The obligation which God assumed in this promise was wholly gratuitous.  God had no debt, strictly speaking, from which a right could belong to man.  The only debt was that of his own faithfulness to the promise.  And as for man, he could not, strictly and properly, obtain merit from his obedience, and could not seek the reward as a right.  The worthiness of works could bear no proportion to the reward of life eternal.”[5]  I think that Murray’s reasoning is irrefutable.  Further, it appears to be seconded by the Westminster Confession (and the 1689 in almost the same language) when in chapter 7, paragraph 1 the Westminster says:  “The distance between God and the creature is so great, that although reasonable creatures do owe obedience to him as their Creator, yet they could never have attained the reward of life but by some voluntary condescension on God’s part, which he hath been pleased to express by way of covenant.”  The only question about this is whether the term ‘works’ needs to imply such a strict idea of meriting the reward of life.
  • Murray goes on to say in “The Adamic Administration” that this administration is not designated a covenant in Scripture. Murray may perhaps be strictly speaking correct about this (depending on your interpretation of Hosea 6:7).  His deeper concern is that the Adamic Administration does not meet what he regards as the proper definition of covenant.  For Murray “Covenant in Scripture denotes the oath-bound confirmation of promise and involves a security which the Adamic economy did not bestow.”[6]  I am not carried by Murray’s argument here.  I question his definition of covenant in Scripture.  I also think it is possible for there to be a covenant properly defined where the exact terminology of covenant is not used.[7]
  • Murray is correct, however, to note that the terminology of Covenant of Works is a somewhat later development in Reformed theology. While the major ideas later summarized under this rubric date back with good evidence to Calvin himself, the actual terminology—Murray thinks—cannot be found until the last decade of the 16th  Even then various ways of describing this covenant may be found.  It is variously called the covenant of life, favor, and nature.[8]

 

The fundamental lesson to be drawn from all this is that Murray’s rejection of this terminology must not be turned into something it was not.  Even such a stern critic of John Murray as Mark Karlberg in Covenant Theology in Reformed Perspective freely admits and concludes: “This recognition that the law-principle does characterize the state of nature, man’s natural relationship with God … safeguards his formulation of the doctrine of justification by faith and the doctrine of the atonement of Christ. …. As a result, Murray’s theological system is essentially compatible with the Westminster Standards …”[9]

[1] John Murray, Collected Writings, Volume Four: Studies in Theology (Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust, 192), 216-240.

[2] Murray, Collected Writings, Volume Two, 47-59.

[3] Murray, Collected Writings, Volume Two, 49.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Murray, Collected Writings, Volume Four, 222.

[6] Murray, Collected Writings, Volume Two, 49.

[7] Gonzales, Robert R., Jr. “The Covenantal Context of the Fall: Did God Make a Primeval Covenant with Adam?” Reformed Baptist Theological Review IV:2 (2007): 5-32.

[8] Murray, Collected Writings, Volume Four, 217-221.

[9] Mark W. Karlberg, Covenant Theology in Reformed Perspective (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2000), 45.

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