by Ben Habegger | 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.
by CBTSeminary | May 11, 2017 | Book Reviews, Eschatology
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4
First Criticism: Prophetic foreshortening must not be applied to New Testament prophecy. (Continued.)
In my last post, I promised to give my readers two conclusive arguments against Waymeyer’s idea that prophetic foreshortening is characteristic of New Testament prophecy. Here is the first one.
First, it directly contradicts the assertion of Jesus that the one who is least in the kingdom is greater than John the Baptist (Matt. 11:11). This is a confusing statement to many and little understood. Its relevance for the present argument is immense. Allow me some space to open up its true meaning.
John the Baptist gladly embraced Jesus as the one who would usher in the glorious and irresistible coming of the kingdom (John 1:29). But when Jesus continued to preach the nearness of the kingdom and even preach the actual presence of the kingdom (Matt. 12:28f.) without the coming of the judgment of the wicked and the onset of the glorious consummation which he had prophesied (Matt 3:10-12), John the Baptist began to have doubts. When John was arrested and imprisoned, the problem became acute. How could the kingdom have come already in Jesus while John was rotting in Herod’s prison? Prison was the last place John expected to be after the coming of the kingdom! Thus, we read in Matthew 11:2-11, “Now when John in prison heard of the works of Christ, he sent word by his disciples, 3 and said to Him, “Are You the Expected One, or shall we look for someone else?” 4 And Jesus answered and said to them, “Go and report to John what you hear and see: 5 the BLIND RECEIVE SIGHT and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the POOR HAVE THE GOSPEL PREACHED TO THEM. 6 And blessed is he who keeps from stumbling over Me.” …. 11 “Truly, I say to you, among those born of women there has not arisen anyone greater than John the Baptist; yet he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.””
How could Jesus say that the one who was least in the kingdom of heaven was greater than John? Verse 11 in speaking of the one “who is least in the kingdom” being greater than John the Baptist refers to John in his distinctive capacity as a prophet. That is the capacity in which John is being considered in this context as verses 12-14 make clear: “And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and violent men take it by force. For all the prophets and the Law prophesied until John. And if you care to accept it, he himself is Elijah, who was to come.”
Prophets were distinguished for their knowledge of the mysteries of the kingdom. It is in this respect that Jesus ranks John as least in the kingdom. It is in his capacity as a prophet—the last and greatest of the Old Testament prophets—that Jesus is referring to John. It is, therefore, at the point of insight with regard to the mysteries relating to the coming of the kingdom that the one who is least in the kingdom is greater than John.
Old Testament prophets and prophecy had, as we have noted, what we may call a flattened perspective about the future. To put it in other words, the prophets were given little depth perception about the future. Sometimes, therefore, events that were widely separated in future time can be found predicted and mixed together in their writings. Consider for example the prophecy of Micah about the exile of Israel to and their deliverance from Babylon (Micah 4:9f.) and how this is intimately connected to predictions of the birth and glory of the Messiah (Micah 5:2f.). It is for this reason that the New Testament clearly teaches that prophets themselves did not at times understand clearly the things they were prophesying (1 Peter 1:10-12).
We learn from Matthew 11:2-6 that a godly and believing man like the great prophet John the Baptist struggled with the seeming inconsistency of Jesus’ preaching of the kingdom and with what the Old Testament itself had led the Jews to expect (Dan 2:44). Can we think, therefore, that Jesus’ disciples would be immune to the same doubts? No, they would have to face the same question. How could the all-conquering, glorious eschatological kingdom of God be present in this former carpenter and His Galilean followers?
The parables of the kingdom in Matthew 13 purport to explain the mystery of the kingdom. Thus, the question addressed is how the kingdom could be present in Jesus, His preaching, and His disciples. The common emphasis of these parables is Jesus’ response to this question. This response is the theme of these parables. It is that the kingdom has come and is present in a form unexpected by the Jews, but that this present form anticipates its future, glorious consummation. To put this in other words, the theme of these parables is that the coming of the kingdom has two phases. It unfolds in two stages. It comes in a form unexpected by the Jews (and even John the Baptist), before it comes in its final glorious form. It is in this two stage coming of the kingdom that the mystery of the kingdom is revealed. Matthew 13 is the intended explanation of this mystery of the kingdom. The one who is least in the kingdom now understands that the kingdom comes in two stages—something that the prophets including John the Baptist—did not understand. The one who is least in the kingdom understands that Jesus is coming twice.
But in explaining the mystery of the kingdom in this way, Jesus brings an end to prophetic foreshortening. He explains the mystery. Thus, the least in the kingdom—then and now—is greater than John the Baptists and all the other Old Testament prophets. To apply prophetic foreshortening to New Testament prophecy is to turn back the clock. It is to put New Testament Christians in the same position as Old Testament prophets. It is to say that Jesus really did not explain the mystery of the kingdom. Virtually, Waymeyer is saying that the kingdom does not come only twice. Mysteriously and in a way not explained in Matthew 13 by Jesus, it actually comes three times: in the present age, in the millennial kingdom, and then in the eternal state.
And all this brings me to a second and consequent criticism. The notion that prophetic foreshortening is to be applied to New Testament prophecy creates havoc with biblical eschatology. Waymeyer substantially and virtually argues that in spite of the way certain passages sound (105), the principle of prophetic foreshortening allows us to see two resurrections, two judgments, and two ages to come where the Bible only speaks of one.
But this application of prophetic foreshortening to New Testament prophecy by Premillennialists is self-defeating. If such gaps still exist, then why may there not be three resurrections, three judgments, and three ages to come, and for that matter three comings of Christ—something that Dispensationalists like Waymeyer already in a sense actually believe! If it justifies Dispensationalism, why may not it justify a Super-Dispensationalism? If Jesus’ explanation of the mystery is not in some sense its final explanation, then New Testament prophecy may mean or include virtually anything. There is an end to the sufficiency of Scripture for prophetic interpretation if we accept Waymeyer’s application of prophetic foreshortening to New Testament prophecy.
There is an old hymn with this prayer: “Be darkness, at Thy coming, light, Confusion, order in Thy path.” The above discussion is the first of many places in which I find the result of Waymeyer’s hermeneutic to be the exact opposite. Its result is not light, but darkness; not order, but confusion. It cannot, therefore, be divine.
Part 6
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by Sam Waldron | Apr 26, 2017 | Book Reviews, Eschatology
Introduction:
When someone writes a book which critiques a position that you hold deeply and dearly, and mentions you by name in his critique, I suppose it would be easy to react defensively and see nothing good in (and say nothing good about) said book. I suppose that is the temptation which I and other Amillennialists face in regard to Matt Waymeyer’s volume entitled, Amillennialism and the Age to Come, published in 2016 by Kress Biblical Resources. I have the “honor” of being mentioned in the very first footnote of this extensive (325 page) critique of Amillennialism. Also mentioned in its footnotes (and perhaps even more frequently than I am) are the fine defenses of Amillennialism written by Sam Storms and Kim Riddlebarger.
Waymeyer holds a Ph.D. from the Master’s Seminary and serves on the faculty of The Expositor’s Bible Seminary in Jupiter, Florida. He (according to the back cover of the book) also serves on the pastoral staff of Grace Immanuel Bible Church. Before that he taught Hermeneutics at the Master’s Seminary for several years. After reading his book, I was not surprised to hear him say in an interview with Fred Zaspel: “But really, the book, itself, flowed out of my PhD dissertation which I wrote at the Masters Seminary.” [http://www.booksataglance.com/author-interviews/interview-matt-waymeyer-author-amillennialism-age-come/] The book certainly does reflect the thoroughness of a doctoral dissertation. On the other hand, Waymeyer deserves commendation, I think, because this volume is quite readable.
But let me return to my original point about the danger I am in of defensiveness and seeing nothing good in Waymeyer’s book. I can honestly say that this is not my reaction to this work. Oh, of course, I do not agree with him. In fact, at a number of points I emphatically disagree. Yet, the fact is that there are number of things about his book that deserve appreciation and commendation. In my next post I will enumerate those things about his book for which I am thankful.
Part 2
Dr. Sam Waldron is the Academic Dean of CBTS and professor of Systematic Theology. He is also one of the pastors of Grace Reformed Baptist Church in Owensboro, KY. Dr. Waldron received a B.A. from Cornerstone University, an M.Div. from Trinity Ministerial Academy, a Th.M. from Grand Rapids Theological Seminary, and a Ph.D. from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. From 1977 to 2001 he was a pastor of the Reformed Baptist Church of Grand Rapids, MI. Dr. Waldron is the author of numerous books including A Modern Exposition of the 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith, The End Times Made Simple, Baptist Roots in America, To Be Continued?, and MacArthur’s Millennial Manifesto: A Friendly Response.
