by Sam Waldron | May 25, 2011 | Current Events, Eschatology
Matthew 24:36 is the classic biblical rebuttal of the tendency of calculating the time of Christ’s return. I intend to expound this text under three headings. The first is this:
I. Its Brief Exposition
Matthew 24:36 reads as follows: “But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone.” By way of a brief or preliminary exposition of this passage, I want to say two things.
First, when Christ refers to “that day and hour“, he is referring to the day and hour or time of His second coming. The entire context puts this beyond doubt. Jesus has been speaking of His second coming in the preceding context (24:27, 30, 31). He goes on to speak of this event in the immediately succeeding context (24:37). He uses this exact language to speak of His second coming in the following context (24:42, 44, 50).
Second, Christ asserts here that knowledge of the time of His second coming is hidden from every intelligent creature. Of the time of His coming, Christ says, “No one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone.” Now this statement is from one viewpoint quite perplexing. It raises the question, If Christ is God and, therefore, omniscient or all-knowing, how can there be anything he does not know? The simple answer to this question is suggested by our Confession. Chapter 8, paragraph 2, echoes the historic, orthodox doctrine of the person of Christ. There the Confession states that the Son of God possessed a “whole, perfect, and distinct” human nature. Because of this, the Bible speaks of Him as a man physically or bodily. He was hungry, thirsty, and grew tired. The Scripture also speaks of him as a man spiritually or mentally. He grew and matured intellectually (Luke 2:40, 52; Heb. 5:8). Therefore, when we come to Matt. 24:36 there should be nothing surprising to us in Christ’s assertion that there were some things He did not know. If we are not stumbled when we hear the Son of God say, “I thirst” (even though as God He was never thirsty), there is no reason why we should be stumbled when we hear Him say that there is something He does not know. If we are not stumbled when the Scripture says that he grew in wisdom (even though as God He could not grow in wisdom because He always knew everything), then there is no reason for us to be stumbled when the Scripture declares that not even the Son knows the time of His second coming. Jesus is speaking here as a man. He is not declaring to us the contents of the divine mind, but of His human intellect.
Christ here asserts that neither He, nor any other man, nor even the angels of heaven knew the time of His second coming. Think about the implications of that statement. Who were the human instruments of divine revelation? Men, angels, and Jesus himself! Jesus’ statement implies that God had not revealed the date of the end of the world to any of the men or angels by which God communicated to men in the Old Testament. It also implies that He had not revealed it to the Son by which He brought that revelation to conclusion in the New Testament (Hebrews 1:1-2). Jesus is, thus, plainly teaching that the time of His coming is not a part of the revelation God chose to give men in the Word of God. Therefore, no amount of scholarship or genius, not even a whole life-time of study dedicated to the study of typology, numerology, or prophecy will ever find in Scripture some secret, figurative, mysterious revelation of the time-period of Christ’s return. It has not been put in the Scriptures and no amount of searching will find it there.
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.
by Sam Waldron | May 24, 2011 | Current Events, Eschatology
I am assuming three things in this response to Camping.
First, the Bible predicts the yet future bodily return of Christ (Acts 1:9; 3:19, 20).
Acts 1:9-11 And after He had said these things, He was lifted up while they were looking on, and a cloud received Him out of their sight. And as they were gazing intently into the sky while He was going, behold, two men in white clothing stood beside them. They also said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into the sky? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in just the same way as you have watched Him go into heaven.”
Acts 3:19-21 “Therefore repent and return, so that your sins may be wiped away, in order that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord; and that He may send Jesus, the Christ appointed for you, whom heaven must receive until the period of restoration of all things about which God spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets from ancient time.
Second, this return of Christ will not be secret, but public, glorious, visible, and universal (Matt. 24:24-27; 1 Thess. 5:1-4; 2 Thess. 1:6-10).
Matthew 24:24-27 “For false Christs and false prophets will arise and will show great signs and wonders, so as to mislead, if possible, even the elect. Behold, I have told you in advance. So if they say to you, ‘Behold, He is in the wilderness,’ do not go out, or, ‘Behold, He is in the inner rooms,’ do not believe them. For just as the lightning comes from the east and flashes even to the west, so will the coming of the Son of Man be.”
My rejection of setting dates for Christ’s second coming in no way means that I do not believe that Christ is coming. To put this in other words, rejecting the notion of setting dates for Christ’s coming does not mean rejecting Christ’s coming itself.
Third, I am not denying that there are certain signs that Christ’s coming is drawing near. My rejection of setting dates for Christ’s second coming in no way means that there are no signs of His coming. What I am assuming and saying is that there are no time signs of His coming. For instance, Jesus gives this sign of His coming:
Matthew 24:14 “This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come.”
This is in a sense a sign of His coming. But this sign of Christ’s coming is in no way a time sign of His coming. That is, it enables no one to make a prediction like that Mr. Camping made of the date of Christ’s coming.
The fact that dirt is being moved on one side of our property is a sign that a new building is coming, but it is not a time sign. We do not know when our church’s first service in the new worship center will take place.
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.
by Sam Waldron | May 23, 2011 | Current Events, Eschatology
I had every intention of continuing my series in the life of Elijah Sunday evening until Friday afternoon. On Friday afternoon to relieve the boredom of a long and lonely drive home from Michigan I was listening to Rush Limbaugh. I was surprised to hear him mention to the millions in his radio audience the name of Harold Camping and his prediction that the rapture would occur on May 21. Rush was not misinformed. Harold Camping did predict the rapture of the Christians May 21 and the gradual annihilation of the world over the next several months. His prediction received wide publicity over the last month or two in the media. This is really surprising since Camping has already proved himself a fallible prophet when he predicted the coming of Christ in his book 1994?.
Harold Camping’s prediction has already been proved wrong. I have no desire to mock a pitiful old man and his poor, deluded followers. Why blog on Why the Prediction That Christ Would Come Yesterday Was Wrong? I am not doing so because I believe there is any value in beating a dead horse or in this case a dead prediction. I am doing so because such occasions as this one provide a teachable moment to impart important biblical teaching. It is not wrong to take advantage of the occasions of Easter and Christmas to teach about the resurrection and the incarnation—even though such holidays are merely cultural and not required by the Word of God. Even so it is proper to take advantage of the hullabaloo over Camping’s false predictions to get some important teaching of the Bible out there.
I want to say a couple of things about my title, Why the Prediction That Christ Would Come Yesterday Was Wrong. It struck me that someone could react when I sent out this title Friday, May 20 by saying that I was uttering a prediction just as much as Camping. That reaction would be fair if I what I meant was that I was predicting that Christ would not come on Saturday. But that is not what I meant. What I intended by my title was that whether or not Christ was coming on Saturday it was wrong for Camping to predict it. It was wrong because the Bible forbids such predictions by teaching that no one knows the day or the hour of Christ return. If that language sounds familiar, it is because I am borrowing it from Jesus Himself (Matthew 24:36).
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.
