Prophecy & Eschatology, Part Two
a lecture series by Dr. Michael S. Heiser
This is part two of a four part series on prophecy and eschatology. Part one can be watched here. Dr. Heiser begins this second session with the question:
“Someone you are trying to disciple stops you after church and asks why the gospels don’t agree on what was written on the sign nailed to Jesus’ cross. She wonders how the gospel writers couldn’t get something like that right - one or all of them must be wrong. How do you answer her?
How do we account for variations in the gospel accounts? Especially with something like what was written on the sign nailed to Jesus’ cross? (Matt 27:37; Mark 15:26; Luke 23:38; John 19:19). This is a good example of how we need to think carefully about the text. Think about it and comment below!
Transcript:
Michael Heiser 0:01
These are the slides to the second session of the series four week series on prophecy that I'm doing at my church. And since the audio was not recorded for my session, and hence the video wasn't posted, I thought I would make a quick screen capture of the slides. Now, the session was about an hour, I'm going to try to cut that in half here, and take about half an hour to go through the slides. But I wanted you to at least have something in relationship to the topic. And this first slide is how I began. So I'm just going to jump right in by way of a preliminary quiz, and there is a point to this. So bear with me. If you have someone you're trying to disciple, they stop you after church. And they ask you why the Gospels don't agree on what was written on the sign nailed Jesus cross. The point is, you know, what would you do with that? So you have this person come up to you, and ask you about this. And she wonders how in the world the gospel writers couldn't get something like that right? one or all of them must be wrong. And that's her presupposition. So how would you answer? Well, let's take a look at the superscription ones. Here they are, you might not be aware of this issue. And all four gospels disagree in some way. In terms of the superscription, on the cross, you'll notice Matthew, Mark, Luke, John there. Now they all have King of the Jews, as a phrase, you might notice that as you go through. But the other elements, there's some sort of variation going on. So the question is, what do you do with this? Well, I would suggest that all of them could be right instead of one of them being wrong. In other words, the Gospels are like the life of Jesus in stereo, there's no reason to think that all of the words in all of the superscription is here, could not have been on the superscription itself. And the gospel writers are just either recording part of it maybe for a literary reason, you know, some sort of authorial intention for literary purposes, or they're just remembering only part of it. But there's no reason to say that all of the words could not have been there. Let me give you a contemporary illustration. Now, we've had a lot of brouhaha over the House budget deal, or we did recently, at least for the timing of this session. So Speaker Boehner on the House budget deal, I've gone through three news sources took me about five minutes to find these. And here's what Speaker Bonner was quoted as saying about the house budget deal. All of these entities, these news entities read the same press conference. But look at the quotations. They're all quite a bit different. And so I'll ask the same question that we asked if the four Gospels, which one of these is wrong? Well, the obvious answer is that none of them are wrong. They're just recording part of a greater whole. And that would be the point with the gospel writers as well. And for whatever reason, they chose the wording that they did, or, again, it might just be memory. But there's nothing to say, in this instance, with Speaker Bonner, that all of these things were not said by him at that single event. And going back to the Gospels, there's no reason to suspect that all of those words could not have been on the superscription. It's just a selective citation. Now, why am I bringing this up? Because what you've just seen me do both to the Gospels, and to these news sources is harmonize them. Okay, bring them together, I'm joining them into a coherent whole. Now, this actually applies to the whole question of the rapture, which is what was the topic in session two? Does does the Bible teach a rapture or not? Now up here we have the standard pre mil pre trib view, this is the left behind view. You'll notice at the top here, I have some representative authors les Ryrie, MacArthur Schofield, your standard pretrib view is that we're living in the church age here. At some point we'll have a rapture where Jesus will descend and take believers up with him. After that, there will be seven years of hell on earth, the tribulation, at the end of that Jesus will return Second Coming, then we have a 1000 year kingdom and then the eternal state, the new heaven and new earth. Now, you'll look at this we have two separate events, rapture, second coming. They are both returns of Jesus in some way. But there are two distinct events. So that's the question for tonight or it was the return of Christ. Do you believe in One or two events. If you believe in two, then you have a rapture you believe in a rapture and then a subsequent Second Coming. If you believe in one, then you don't have a rapture, you just have the Second Coming. That's another way of asking, Are you a splitter, or a joiner? And here's where are a little illustration about the Gospels and how speaker Bonner comes up. What you're going to see in these slides is that there are a wide range of passages in the New Testament that talk about the return of Jesus. And I'm saying it that way deliberately, the return of Christ. They do not all agree in every detail. The only way you get a rapture and a second common, the only way you get to events, is to split or separate. The passages about the return of Christ into two categories, still the way you get there. If you harmonize them, though, like we did with the Gospels, if you harmonize them, if you join them, you only have one event, you only have a second coming. So the whole notion of a rapture is based upon your prior decision, your presupposition, something you bring to the Bible, that I ought to separate, or I ought to join the passages to talk about the return of Jesus, I either have two categories or one. It's it's that simple, but also that profound in a sense that a lot of people don't realize that this is what they're doing. Or this is what the preachers doing, that they're listening to or the book they're doing. They're just making a simple decision up when I have two passages talking about the return of Christ, and they don't agree they must be separate events. Well, why you wouldn't approach the gospels that way, you would harmonize them. So why do you split instead of join? And we can ask the other question, why do you join instead of split, there's no cosmic rule that says you have to harmonize. There's also no cosmic rule that says you have to split neither view is self evident in the Bible. The Bible doesn't come with a set of instructions on what to do. You just decide what you're going to do. And then you, it takes you to a position in your in your eschatology. So splitter join, let's look here at First Thessalonians four. And this is a passage that everyone says refers to a rapture who believes in a rapture. This is sort of the classic passage, and if you read through, it should be very familiar. we who are alive who are left to the coming of the Lord will not proceed those who fall asleep, the Lord Himself would descend from him with a cry of command or a shout, some translations have the voice of an archangel, the sound of the trumpet of God and the dead in Christ rise first. The other believers are caught up together in with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so since Jesus doesn't set foot on Earth in this passage, like he does in other ones, there are some who say, well, first Thessalonians, four, and those other passages can't be referred to the same event, we have to split them. Okay, keep that in your head. It's your decision to split them or join them. Now, in this passage, you have a few elements, I've listed them out, you got this cry or shout, you have a voice of an archangel the trumpet. There's caught up, you know, with Jesus with the dead in Christ in the clouds. And then there's this meeting of the Lord in the air. I try to keep those in mind as we go through some other slides here. I'm going to look at some assumptions about this passage and its wording that will sort of dovetail with this idea or this question, do I split or join? Let's take a look at the phrase meet the Lord in the air. Now, if you believe in a rapture, you're used to assuming that air there is literal, it's the literal atmosphere of the where planes fly. Okay. But what about that question? Does Satan or the Devil live in Earth's atmosphere? In other words, what that area where oxygen is still present, where planes fly beneath what we would call outer space, but above the ground, in other words, does he live in our physical terrestrial world?
Now, if you say yes, then you're looking at air literally. But I mean, think about the question. Is there any risk of Satan or the Devil getting hit by a plane? Is he just fast and he never gets hit? You think? Well, that's kind of a silly question. He's a spiritual being. He's a disembodied being by nature. Well, that is my point. Have you considered that air here, meet the Lord in the air might just be used metaphorically, for we meet the Lord in the unseen spiritual realm. If that's the case, then we don't need this idea of being, you know, watching people physically fly up in the air in a rapture. The whole passage would just mean, hey, we're going to, we're going to be with the Lord, we're going to be with the Lord, in that in heaven, or in that place in that realm, that spiritual realm where he is, and that's all it means. So again, the point might just be the spiritual realm. Sumption number two, caught up to meet the dead in the clouds to meet Jesus. What I'm getting at here is how literal do we take this language? Because if you're a splitter, you see this as a literal event that happens where planes fly. And Jesus never comes to the earth. And that's one event as opposed to a subsequent event where Jesus comes to the earth. And what I'm asking you to think about is, if you merge them, you know, some people, I can't merge them, that's a problem. Because you know, what about this stuff going on up in the air? Well, maybe the whole point is just the resurrection. And that is something that happens after the Second Coming. So maybe we do just have one event, instead of two. Maybe the whole point of the language in First Thessalonians. Four is that we're with the Lord. Clouds. Question here? How would we meet the disembodied dead? Literally, either visibly or physically in the clouds? How would we see them if they don't have bodies? In other words, how literally do you take this corollary assumption is that First Thessalonians, four again, describes a rapture of dead believers coming bodily out of the graves. But if you noticed in the passage, First Thessalonians, For the Text never says that. It never talks about the dead coming up, out of their graves in a physical, you know, resurrected sense. Now, the reason I mentioned that will be evident in a moment here. But these questions here again, draw, or at least create the opportunity to think about how literal do we want to be about this, maybe this is just a reference to a spiritual resurrection, where we are and the dead at a given point, when the Lord returns, we're all together in heaven in the spiritual realm, the non terrestrial realm with Jesus, maybe that's the whole point. And we don't have to worry about the literal pneus of this event, and distinguish it from the second coming, and then the resurrection. Excuse me. Now, to get the idea of this transformation of the dead, you need First Corinthians 15, for that. But that brings up a third assumption, that first Corinthians 15 is also about a rapture, and not the subsequent second coming, I look at the passage, and there's a reference to the trumpet. We had that in first Thessalonians four. So people are led to think, oh, that must be the rapture because it's a trumpet. But they've they've made the prior assumption, that first Thessalonians four has to be split off from other passages about second coming. But now let's ask the question, is this really about a rapture? Is this really about an event catch this any event prior to the Second Coming? Let's take a look. There's more of the passage than meets the eye. You have the trumpet. You've got down here about the perishable body putting on immortality, you have the dead will be raised again that language, that language again have some sort of physical resurrection and physical change. As the passage continues, though, verse 54. When the perishable puts on the imperishable the mortal puts on immortality, then Paul quotes a passage share a poem from the Old Testament. Death is swallowed up in victory. Oh Death, where is your victory? Oh, death. where is your sting? Now here's the question. Is this First Corinthians 15, the final victory over death. Now, if you say yes, I have a link down here, and I'm not going to open the software in the slide, but the link is to Revelation 20. The final judgment. This is the place where death, after the Second Coming not after the rapture after the Second Coming, that's the time when death is finally destroyed. So now you have a problem. We thought this referred to a rapture seven years earlier than the second coming. But Paul's quotation here, conceptually links to an event after the Second Coming. That's a little bit of a problem. Continuing, if you go back into First Corinthians 15, look at what you read. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive, but each in his own order. Here's the order Christ, the firstfruits. Christ was the first that rose bodily from the dead, then at His coming, those who belong to Christ, okay, well, you say, well, is that the rapture the Second Coming? I don't know. Well, look at verse 24, then comes the end. The coming here is not split into two events. Now, again, to maintain the two events, what you really have to do is you have to deny that First Corinthians 15, as a rapture passage, and you have to reserve it for the second coming, because then this chronology can make sense. And the reference to the death being put to death will make sense. But then the problem becomes is, is that the problem that is raised is that both passages have this trumpet thing, which many people associate only with the rapture. And so you have to make choices here. And that's the point of my prophecy sessions. Just showing people I don't really care what position you take, but showing you why you take those positions. You know what goes into them, believe it or not, you're, you're unconsciously you've already made some of these decisions before you ever get to the passages. So then comes the end, when He delivers the kingdom to God the Father, well, that doesn't happen at the rapture. Again, this has to be second coming. After destroying every rule and every authority, every power, the last enemy to be stored as death. Again, this has to be second coming. Now, there are some who would just split First Corinthians 15, into two events. You know, wonderful, that's just a decision you have to make. Well, here, it's the second coming. And then later, when we get to the 50s, it's the rapture, then verse 54, we're, we're back to talking about the second coming, because that has this destruction of death line, you know, chop up the passage however you want. But realize that is what you're doing, you're doing it because you've already made the decision, or you already believe that you need to do that. And if you don't chop it up, you know, you're you're already deciding that you don't need to do that you're going to harmonize instead of split, you're going to join instead of split. Now should I split or join the elements, let's take a look at some other passages. The Son of Man is going to come with his angels in the glory of his Father and He will repay its person according to what he's done. Again, here's a reference to angels at the coming so is that the rapture, or the second coming will depending on if you split or join, this judgment here will either be the judgment seat of Christ or the final judgment at the end. The point is, you're going to interpret this passage by virtue of your prior decision. Now, if you're wondering, Mike, are you saying that my theology is, is driving my Bible interpretation? Yeah. That's just the nature of the beast. And it's like I've said before, it's why there's so much ambiguity here. There's there's so much that is presupposition driven, that I don't really care for prophecy that much. Because so much of it is so subjective in this manner. What I do care is that people don't realize that, that they just think that they open they flip open their Bibles and pop, you know, outcomes. They're eschatology. That is just not the case. You only think that because you've read a book or you've read a novel. And you just think that it's that self evident. It's not there's a lot that you are not being told.
Matthew 25 Again, another reference to angels. The Son of Man comes in his glory, all the angels with him when he hit that he'll sit on his voice from his throne. That sounds like The Return of Christ in Revelation 17, when Christ returns with the holy ones, at the battle of Armageddon, so that one looks like second coming in, that's a little easier, but you have reference to angels. And you had a reference to Angel, an angel in First Thessalonians? Four. So why can't you join them? Well, the answer is you can. But some won't want to, because they want the two events. They don't want the one event. Let's go to Second Thessalonians. Same author Paul piggyBac, you know, with First Thessalonians First Thessalonians, four, it was this passage, you know, where we saw, most people get a rapture from, it's sort of the go to passage. Now concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to him, I look at the wording there. This sounds a lot like First Thessalonians For the idea of of believers being gathered to Jesus, where he doesn't actually come and land on Earth, but believers are gathered to Him. So Second Thessalonians, one sounds, it has the same flavor as First Thessalonians four. And again, if you notice that, I'm going to, I'm going to ask you the question again. Do you really want Second Thessalonians to be a rapture? Do you really want to split? Or do you want to join here? Look at the rest of what Paul says in Second Thessalonians one, when the Lord Jesus has revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, and there's the angels again in flaming fire, a lot of that that isn't the rapture, inflicting vengeance on those who don't know God. No rapture doctrine I know of would say that those who don't obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus, punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord, glorify and his saints. That is not what happens in any description of the rapture I've ever read. So knowing that I would read this and say, that's got to be second coming. So what you'll commonly hear, and again, this is just a decision you make is that second Thessalonians is second coming. And First Thessalonians. Four is Rapture. We split, we don't join, or do we, again, you have the reference to angels, maybe the two can be joined. But if you do that, then you only have one event. Say silly, Mike, you know, obviously, one's there. Absolutely. There's a second coming. That's only true if you're a splitter. And that's just a decision you make. There's no instruction in the Bible that says, Thou shalt split references to Jesus return when you when you hit them. In the New Testament, there is no instruction book. It's just a decision, you make a joiners, again, just by way of review, they will look at these elements. And they'll say, look, if I see these other elements in other passages that talk about the return of Jesus, I don't really care if they match up exactly in all their language. I'm going to do with these, what I do with the Gospels, I'm going to harmonize them, I'm going to say all of the elements are true of one event. I'm not going to split them. So when you get to Matthew 2430, you have references to clouds, angels, trumpets, the gathering, again, sounds a lot like First Thessalonians, four. But a lot of people will say, Well, I, to me, this is the second coming. If you go to Matthew 24, you're going to have sort of a chain of events there. You're going to join that with First Thessalonians and just call it one event. First Corinthians 15 trumpet, a wonderful, it's one event, I think there's going to be a trumpet at the Second Coming, there is no Rapture. Again, the final death of death, obviously Second Coming. The order came each in his own order, the coming the end the kingdom, and destroying every rule and authority. It's second coming. They're all one. This is what a joiner will do. So the question is, are you a splitter, or a joiner? Is the return of Christ one event or two? You just have to decide. Again, this is the inherent ambiguous nature of studying prophecy. A couple other implications imminence. Some of you might be thinking, well, the return of Jesus is imminent. Yeah, whatever that means. It let's talk about what imminence might mean. Some people are trained to think that imminence can only mean that Jesus could return in the next eyeblink. In other words, there's nothing that has to happen before Jesus returned If it can happen in the next instance. Now whether you realize it or not the only people who believe that the only people who define imminence that way, are those who believe in a pre trib Rapture. Pre trib pre mille Rapture. Seems, excuse me. Even those who have other rapture views like mid trib, pre wrath or post trib, none of them define imminence that way, they all say there's some sign or signs before the rapture before the first event. And then we have the second coming. If you don't believe in a rapture at all, if you just have the second company, then there are plenty of signs that are described in the New Testament. So there's only a minority segment of Christianity that believes that Jesus could return to the next eye blink. And frankly, that view even cheats a little bit itself. Because if you could sort of map out, you know, signs that would occur after the rapture. And if you believe that you have the seven year period, you can sort of do the math to and imminence sort of loses that immediacy to it. But a lot of people don't bother to think of it that way. But anyway, if you're thinking of imminence in this way, that nothing has to happen, nothing is preventing the return of Jesus or nothing is expected that would precede it. That's only one view. And it's a minority view, actually. eminence could mean Jesus will return soon, there may have been or still need to be things that will happen. Or you could say Jesus will return unexpectedly. Now, that would apply to those who aren't watching and waiting. So that could be this, you know, this whole language of Jesus in the New Testament returning. And there's this element of surprise, you know, one will be taken the other left and the thief in the night kind of imagery. Again, that's where this idea of imminence comes from. While it may just mean unexpected, it doesn't mean this up here that there's nothing that has to happen. Again, you, you just have to define the term. And then you know, it'll take you somewhere, it'll take you to a position. Now, if you're a joiner, you have one return only. That rolls out the first option. Obviously, there are definite signs. Let's go back to Second Thessalonians. And we have here this passage not concerning the coming over Lord Jesus Christ, are being gathered together to him. We asked you brothers, not to be quickly shaken, so on and so forth. Let no one deceive you in any way down here in verse three. For that day, the coming of our Lord Jesus will not come unless the rebellion comes first. And the man of lawlessness is revealed. Now, practically everybody who believes in a literal Antichrist is going to say this is the Antichrist. So right here, we have a clear statement that before the second coming anyway, you have to, you know, you're gonna know who the Antichrist is. So that has to precede so if you if you don't believe in a rapture, if you just believe in a second coming, or if you're not a pre trib rapture person, you're looking for this. Okay, that needs to happen. Before some of these other things go into effect yet, so you're going to define imminent, says probably, it's just unexpected, it just sort of hits you it comes upon you, as opposed to it can happen in the next millisecond. Because we don't know who the Antichrist is. First Thessalonians five. Now, this is the thief in the night passage. And I want to show you that Paul, in this passage does not suggest or at least let me let me be
more fair here. This can certainly be read that Paul does not suggest that their Lord could return in the next millisecond. He suggests the inferences that are made here in this passage are that the believers who are watching and waiting will not be surprised. Okay. Let me just go to the next slide. And I've colorized the pronouns, and a couple nouns. And I think you'll see this it'll jump out at you. Now concerning the times and the seasons, brothers. Paul's writing two brothers, he's writing to a Gentile church. These are believers. These are Christians. They're not just Jews, they're Christians. So anything in red refers to Christians. Concerning the Times and Seasons brothers, you have no need to have any thing written to you, whether it's I don't really even need to tell you this because you know already, For you yourselves are fully aware that the day the Lord will come like a thief in the night of the day the Lord in the Old Testament is the time of judgment. It's the time where the wrong is made, right? And the right is made, you know, it's validated, okay, you know, evil is judged, and the righteous are vindicated by the Lord, if there's a positive and negative aspect there, and that's, you know, language that's very clear. Second Coming, again, is usually when that's associated with but the person who believes in a rapture will often use the thief in the night language to justify a certain view of imminence. And, you know, you might do that, you might just say, Okay, I know this passage, doesn't talk about a rapture, but the thief in the night imagery, and then there's some other passages make me believe that it can happen at any moment and fine, I just want you to realize that that's what you're doing. You're making those kinds of decisions. So you yourselves are fully aware, the day Lord will come like a thief in the night while people, not believers, other people are saying, oh, there's peace and security, then sudden destruction will come. They, unbelievers will not escape. But you believers Christians are not in darkness brothers, for that day to surprise you like a thief, you're not going to be a surprise, for you are all children the light show to the day we Paul's including himself now are not of the night or of the darkness and then let us not sleep as others do. unbelievers. Let us keep awake and be sober. Again, I just want you to see that this thief in the night language isn't necessarily or doesn't necessarily have to be what a preacher pre mill rapture position says it is. There's two ways to read it. Again, one or two events, just depends if you're a splitter. Last implication here, Jesus and other New Testament writers do talk about the return of the Lord. And the question is when they do that, is there this any moment nothing out there to happen yet feeling to the language? Well, in a lot of cases, no. This is a quote from Erickson's theology, and he gives you a few examples. Certain events had transpired before the second coming again, again, if you believe in a rapture, this you're fine with all this. Because you say Oh, well, yeah, of course, the second coming. But I believe in Rapture, I'm a splitter, and not a joiner. So the rapture can happen at any moment. Again, that's fine. That that is a position you can you can hold and people do and people defend it. Whatever, you know, again, I'm not concerned which position you take, I just want you to realize why you take it. And what it's based on these these decisions you make, you don't just flip open your Bible, and there it is, you decide to separate some passages from others, so that your conception of what's going to happen in end times will work. And the other side, other views do the same thing. They decide to join passages so that their conception of the End Times works. Everybody's position, everybody's system looks beautiful, and more power to you. But what you need to realize is that everybody cheats in the sense that everybody makes prior decisions out of their head. There's no Bible passage telling you to split or join. They make the decisions out of their head to do what they do in certain passages. And that's why they have the positions they do. And that's why Christians disagree. What you have to come to is the realization, the humility, to say that my position is no smarter is no more biblical than somebody else's, because I'm just making one set of decisions, and they're making a different set of decisions. That's all it comes down to. None of the views are self evident. So again, you have examples here of this language, and they either impact you or not based upon your decisions about splitting or joining. That's the end of the slides. I hope this had some explanatory value.