By Dr. Samuel M. Frost
I recently came across an old book by E. Schuyler English, editor of The New Scofield Reference Bible (1967). This particular work is entitled, Re-Thinking the Rapture,[1]and as I began reading it, I found many interesting points that are still raised to this day. English was a Dispensationalist, and in that scheme, he adopted the pre-tribulation-rapture theory. His writing style exhibits a smooth penmanship, demonstrating his familiarity with Dispensational thought.
For my readers, it is not necessary to go into details concerning the various views of Eschatology. Rather, I wish to highlight some concerns expressed by English and note their similarity to today’s thought(s) on the matters at hand. Right off the bat, English quotes a litany of OT passages concerning the reign of Messiah; passages like 2 Samuel 7.16, Psalm 2, Isaiah 11.1-10, and Malachi 4.1-3.[2] After this, English wrote, “None of these things occurred when the blessed Son of God became flesh and dwelt among men on this earth for thirty-three years.”[3] This brought to mind a work by renowned NT scholar Amy-Jill Levine, entitled, The Misunderstood Jew.[4] She, likewise, begins on the first page of chapter one with these lines: “For Jews, claims of Jesus’ divine sonship and fulfillment of the messianic prophecies are false. Since we live in a world of cancer and AIDS, war and genocide, earthquakes and hurricanes, the messianic age cannot be here yet. Since there is no messianic age, obviously the messiah has not yet come.”[5]
If this were not enough, allow me a few more quotes. In a very insightful essay, Rabbi Byron L. Sherwin writes, “As a final and ultimate messiah, Jesus was a failure because he did not bring about the final and complete redemption of the world. If he had completely succeeded, a parousia – a second coming – would not be necessary.” Christians, however, believe that he brought about a “complete spiritual redemption. Jews do not accept this…messianic redemption is not limited to the spiritual realm. The dominant motif in Jewish messianism is that messianic redemption occurs in time and space, in history, in the sociopolitical realm. For redemption to be complete, it must take place in the physical as well as the spiritual realm. For Judaism, the physical and the spiritual are interrelated, interlocked.”[6] Further, messianic Judaism believes that God will usher in a “world without war – a world at peace.”[7] Numerous quotes from several rabbinical scholars can be given to further demonstrate this point, but with one more, I will finish. “Judaism insists,” writes Irving Greenburg, “that redemption is going to happen in this world and that this achievement of total perfection of the world will take place…”[8]
It is plain from these quotes that something must be done in terms of the glaring omission of kingdom-fulfillment in the lifetime of Jesus’ ministry on earth. Indeed, the same – the very same – idea is found in Luke 19.11, “As they heard these things, he proceeded to tell a parable because he was near to Jerusalem, and because of this they supposed that the kingdom of God would at any moment appear at any second.”
There are two causal terms that link together the thinking of the crowd. Jerusalem (and Jesus, the Messiah-King) was in sight (near), and their theological idea that the kingdom’s end time appearance was imminent, or at any moment. Luke’s Greek is emphatic on this point. Is this not the objection Jewish theologians have today? It most certainly is. The Jews in Jesus’ day expected the arrival of God’s kingdom in the very same way we have read above. This very issue is the one Christian history has offered several explanations for.
When we read the opening of the Gospel of Mark, we find the quotation from Isaiah 40.3-4. However, verse 5 states, “And the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.” Likewise, Mark has conflated this passage with Malachi 3.1, and in 3.2 we find the “day of the Lord” connected with the “coming” of the Lord. In other words, the Jews in Jesus’ day had a good reason for thinking that with the coming of Messiah, the Day of the Lord would be commenced. “All flesh” would see it.
Calvin, commenting on Daniel 12.2, wrote, “The angel seems here to mark a transition from the commencement of the preaching of the gospel, to the final day of the resurrection, without sufficient occasion for it. For why does he pass over the intermediate time during which many events might be the subject of prophecy? He unites these two subjects very fitly and properly, connecting the salvation of the Church with the final resurrection and with the second coming of Christ” (Calvin’s Commentaries, in loco). That is, often, two prophesied events (here, “tribulation” and “resurrection”) are mentioned side by side, suggesting that the one event takes places with the other. But, we often note that prophecy does not work this way. Jeremiah foretold that Israel would be regathered after her exile, and Jerusalem would be rebuilt, and “it shall not be plucked up, nor thrown down any more for ever” (Jeremiah 31.38). We know that this, taken at face value, did not happen. Jerusalem was “plucked up” again in the time of 70-73/136 AD under the Roman authority.
The disciples, also, seemed to labor under the idea that the kingdom glory would appear in the ministry of Jesus. However, Jesus reminded them that the son of man must first suffer, and then enter into glory (Ascension) as per Psalm 110. We may add, that he had to be first born to a woman, and live for several years prior to his baptism by John and commencement of his ministry. We can further add that the Holy Spirit had been promised to be poured out on a larger scale than before. Then, there is the spreading of the good news of Isaiah’s God to the nations and distant lands.
English, in the book cited, notes that the disciples fully expected the establishment of the kingdom in their own immediate time. However, “they knew nothing [of the] mystery revealed to Paul.”[9] That is, “the church age”[10] is a parenthetical age in the Dispensationalist scheme. The imminent kingdom was “postponed.”[11] By contrast, Postmillennial and Amillennial views argue for a spiritual fulfillment of the kingdom promises by blurring “Israel” and its natural meaning, into “the church.” Dispensationalism keeps Israel and the church visibly distinct. The liberal critic dismisses both of these views as untenable, and note that the kingdom was announced to be imminent, and simply did not happen. The “church,” faced with this difficulty, so it is alleged, invented an ecclesiological organization in response. The so called, “delay of the parousia” created “the church” as we now see it in history. All of these views face several difficulties which we can explore later. It may be noted that Jesus’ announcement, interpreted in such phrasings as “near,” “at hand,” and “this generation,” are all interpreted in the sense of imminence of time, but this temporal reading is being challenged.[12]
What may be noted, too, is that the Ascension of Christ is largely “skipped over,” and barely mentioned in the works of Scofield, Ryrie, and English, three main representatives of Dispensationalism. It is given lip service among many Postmillennialists and Amillennialists. That is, it is merely Christ’s exaltation over all things in heaven and earth, but is not given any real significance in terms of establishing the kingdom except only in a “spiritual sense.” This, in turn, paves the way for a “social gospel” here on earth.[13] There is no sense of “imminence” anymore in these views since the NT prophecies are, by and large, “fulfilled” by the time of 70 AD with Jerusalem’s destruction. What’s left is a far removed “resurrection of the dead” and “new heavens and new earth” consummation at the end of time, and some have even begun to question the relevancy of that.
[1] E. S. English, Re-Thinking the Rapture, (Travelers Rest, SC: Southern Bible Book House, 1954).
[2] Ibid., 13-15.
[3] Ibid., 15.
[4] Levine, Amy-Jill The Misunderstood Jew: The Church and the Scandal of the Jewish Jesus. (New York: HarperOne, 2006).
[5] Ibid., 17. We may note that English, too, sites the same issues of evil in the world (op. cit., 19).
[6] Bruteau, Beatrice, Ed., Jesus through Jewish Eyes: Rabbis and Scholars Engage an Ancient Brother in a New Converstion. (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2001). “Who Do You Say that I Am?”, Byron L. Sherwin (pp. 36-38).
[7] Ibid., 38.
[8] Frymer-Kensky, Tikva; David Novak; Peter Ochs; David Fox Sandmel; Michael A. Singer, Eds., Christianity in Jewish Terms (Westview Press, 2000), 38.
[9] English, 43.
[10] Ibid., 45.
[11] Ryrie, Charles C., Dispensationalism. (Chicago: Moody Bible Institute, 1995), see pp. 146-ff., for one of the better treatments of their idea of “postponement.”
[12] We may see the emergence of this challenge from Walter Rauschenbusch, Christianity and the Social Crisis, (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1964 [orig. 1907]). Reacting against the consensus of the academicians, that Jesus was a “failed prophet,” Rauschenbusch argued that “John the Baptist had expected the activity of the Messiah to begin with the judgment…and there was barely time to escape this. Jesus…reversed the programme; the judgment would come at the end and not at the beginning” (p.58). This is, in my estimation, the correct path to trod.
[13] Catholic theologian, Father John Randall, wrote The Book of Revelation: What Does It Say?, (Locust Valley, NJ: Living Flame Press, 1976) from a near-full preterist perspective, arguing that “ninety-five percent of the Book of Revelation is over and done with” (p.85). This is a rare work in that Randall accepts a late date for the revelation (90,or so, AD), and that Babylon is the ancient power of Rome, which “fell” to Constantine.
Vigilate et Orate 