Our Optimistic Eschatology A Historical Glimpse of How Eschatology Shifted From Preterist to Futurist

The Strange Shift Away from the Optimistic View of End-Times

For 1500 years the majority of the church had an optimistic view of the future. In other words, when the church started in 30 AD (Acts 2) until the in 1517 the church believe that the kingdom of God was growing in the earth and would continue to do so until His Second Coming. Then strange seeds of a new doctrine began in the early 1500s, which eventually bore fruit in the 1800s and led to much of the modern Church believing in these previously non-existent end-times doctrines:

1) Cessation of the spiritual gifts 2) A future seven-year global tribulation 3) A of the Church 4) A one-world “” ruler 5) A re-emergence of Israel as a nation in their promised land

Before the 1500s none of these points were understood as such. In fact, the early church fathers had a very different view than our modern church on these points. The seed of this thinking became planted in the 1800s into a few hearts of people, and began to grow, resulting in a crop of brand new end-time doctrines. This shifted many people’s understanding of history and shifted many people away from scriptural simplicity. Eschatology became confusing, leaving many people afraid and frustrated.

How Did This Change Happen?

The Reformation of the 1500s changed many things in Christianity. Much of the changes were necessary and were good corrections addressing errors which had developed in the Universal (Catholic) church. So, here rests our epicenter. Unwittingly, the famous reformer Martin Luther, in a reactionary comment, formed what became the seed of what would eventually and inadvertently grow into a completely new end-times doctrine. Luther, in speaking against the errors of the Roman Catholic Church, called her “the Whore of Babylon and the Beast.”

Because of Luther’s statement other of the reformers also believed that the papal system was the antichrist, and that the popes were in fact “The Man of Lawlessness (see 2 Thessalonians 2:7-12).” This view became written into key theological documents of that era. For example, The Westminster Confession of Faith (1643-1647) declared that:

“There is no other head of the Church but the Lord Christ; nor can the Pope of Rome in any sense be head thereof; but is that Antichrist, the son of perdition that exalteth himself in the Church against Christ, and all that is called God.” 1

So, in order to counter this thinking and the statement by Martin Luther in 1585, a Jesuit priest by the name of Francisco Ribera published a 500-page work that introduced the idea of placing the prophecies

1 Gary DeMar, Last Days Madness (Atlanta, GA: American Vision, 1999. 4th Edition), 289

8/10/2016 of Daniel 9:24-27, Matthew 24, and Revelation 4-19 into the distant future. Before this, these were understood to be fulfilled prophesies. This was the first teaching of its kind, and the seed matured. It was the seed that was to become, in modern times, the “futurist eschatology.”2 The significance of Ribera’s theories was that, rather than seeing these scripture passages as fulfilled prophecy, Ribera was now putting then in the future. However, Ribera’s ideas did not gain momentum among any of the scholars of his day. In fact his writing was lost until 1826 when Samuel Maitland, the librarian to the Archbishop of Canterbury (leader of the Church of England), found Ribera’s forgotten manuscript and then published it for the sake of curiosity. With this printing, the seed became planted.

In the 1830s a small group, led by John Darby, began to take Ribera’s book seriously. Darby and his contemporary, Edward Irving, became passionate about this new theology of end-times. The most significant of their followers was C.I. Scofield, who published these concepts in the reference commentary in the famed Scofield Reference Bible. This Bible became popular in its time (1909) because it was one of the earliest Bibles to contain full commentary.3 Inbedded in that commentary was Darby’s new doctrines, called dispensationalism.

Dispensationalists

This thinking, dispensationalism, became a standard for seminary students during this time, and their futurist end-times views remained unchallenged until the 1948 Latter Rain movement in which a Pentecostal group disagreed with Scofield’s claim that the spiritual gifts had ceased. Scofield’s commentary asserted cessationism, the belief that the gifts of the Holy Spirit were confined to a dispensation of the early apostolic age (the 12 apostles of Jesus). His followers became known as dispensationalists, and among the other new doctrines, taught of the ending of the "sensational gifts" or "sign gifts" which are healing, faith, working of miracles, and tongues (1 Corinthians 12:8-10). They forbade them because “God no longer bestows such gifts.” This, of course, became highly suspect because of the experience of tongues and prophecy evidenced during the Pentecostal revivals of the early 1900s.

Pentecostals, as a whole, began to push back against this cessation-of-gifts portion of Scofield’s doctrine and commentary, yet embraced the remaining parts of their end-time teaching without realizing their error. They were clearly experiencing the current existence of the spiritual gifts. Therefore, the Pentecostals easily disavowed the cessationism part, yet unwittingly they retained the remaining errors in end-times doctrines. For example, for a number of years, well into the 1970s, a standard textbook in Pentecostal Bible colleges and institutes was Myer Pearlmans "Knowing the Doctrines of the Bible (1937). He broke from dispensationalism, teaching clearly that indeed the spiritual gifts were still available to believers today. However, Pearlman’s exposition on eschatology fits Darby’s futurist vision

2 Kelly Varner, Whose Right It Is, (Shippensburg, PA: Destiny Image, 1995), chapter 7. 3 Jonathan Welton, Raptureless: An optimistic guide to future to the endo of the world, Welton Academy, 2013; 25.

8/10/2016 of the end-times. He retains a 1) future tribulation, 2) rapture, 3) restoration of national Israel to their promised land, and 4) the future antichrist and the resurrection of a Roman world dominion.4

Then in 1961, Finis Dake published the Dake’s Annotated Reference Bible, which continued to promote the same dispensationalism as the Scofield Bible in its notes and commentary. Then further, The Ryrie and MacArthur Study Bibles have continued in Scofield’s tradition of Darbyism, believing that certain prophesies, like Jesus’ “Olivet Discourse” in Matthew 24, have not yet been fulfilled. Since then the system of thinking has been advocated by such prominent educational institutions as Moody Bible Institute, Dallas Theological Seminary, and then vastly popularized in the “Left Behind” fictional book series written by Tim LeHaye and Jerry Jenkins. This has made popular this futurist view of eschatology.

A Wave of False Teaching

During the Second Great Awakening (1830s), the Holy Spirit began to stir American churches to life with a great and notable fervor. Men like Charles Finney held impacting revivals in many cities, bringing a clear move of God’s Spirit and holiness. However, at the same time Satan spewed out many great false teachings and distortions. From the concentrated time from the late 1700s to the late 1800s multiple false teachings emerged that gained footing:

1) Joseph Smith founded Mormonism in 1830 in Palmyra, New York, a suburb of Rochester, NY were Charles Finney was having his revival meetings at the same time.

2) Charles T. Russell founded the Jehovah’s Witnesses in the late 1870s

3) The three Fox Sisters (Leah; Margaret; and Kate) founded Spiritualism in 1848 (which later became the foundation of the New Age Movement). They used “rappings” to attempt to prove they communicated with spirits, and were considered mediums.5

4) The first Unitarian church began in Boston in 1785.

5) Mary Baker Eddy founded Christian Science in 1879.

It was also during this time that John Nelson Darby brought forth his new end-time teachings, which embedded into the church and as a result has become a mainstream belief today.

The Result? A Fatalistic Pessimism

Occurring right after the rise of the Scofield Reference Bible (published in 1909), the earth went through a deeply traumatic season:

1) World War 1 1914-1918 2) The Great Depression 1929-1939 31 years 3) World War 2 1939-1945

4 Myer Pearlman, Knowing the Doctrines of the Bible, Gospel Publishing House, Springfield MO, 1937, 390-391 5 Richard Wiseman (2011). Paranormality: Why We See What Isn't There. Macmillan. p. 118. In 1888, Margaret and Kate confessed that their “rappings” had been a hoax and publicly demonstrated their method. Margaret attempted to recant her confession the next year, but their reputation was ruined and in less than five years they were all dead, with Margaret and Kate dying in abject poverty. Spiritualism, however, continued as if the confessions of the Fox sisters had never happened.

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By the time this 31 year period of time was over, pessimistic Scofield-ism had rooted itself in American thinking. This resulted in a fatalistic mood and an accompanying apathy. The apathy among European churches during the rise of Hitler and Mussolini resulted because many believed that one of these men was in fact the anitchrist and therefore should be allowed to rise to power, since it would lead to a soon rapture. A booklet published in 1940 identified Mussolini as the antichrist, stating he fulfilled 49 prophecies of the antichrist.6

Gary DeMar says of this era:

Many will recall widespread preaching during the World War II era that Mussolini or Hitler was the Antichrist. Since the slogan VV IL DUCE was widely used by Mussolini, and because the Roman numeral value of the slogan/title is 666, many were sure of positive identification.7

Because of the dispensational belief which said “the gentile nations are permitted to afflict Israel in Chastisement for her national sins,” there was little to be done to oppose it. This effectively created a hands-off policy regarding Nazi persecution of the Jews during WW2. So in spite of being more pro- Jewish than any other Christian group, they also were quite apathetic, since persecution was prophetically expected, and seemed the beginning of the inevitable Great Tribulation. This event then would be the thing that would usher in their hoped for rapture. It was a twisted, complicated hope.

Then to further cement Darbyism, Israel regained its independent nation status in 1948, causing many followers to say that when Israel became a state again the end was near. They did not take literally Jesus’ prophetic words saying to the Jewish disciples that “this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened (Matthew 24:34).” Jesus’ statement places the timeframe for fulfillment of His Matthew 24 prophesy—the great tribulation—in between 33 AD and 73 AD (a Biblical generation being 40 years). Dispensationalism had somehow allowed a 1900 year period of time between Jesus’ words and restarting the 40 year countdown-clock (one generation) at the 1948 emergence of the new nation calling itself Israel. They believed that during the next 40 years there would be a rapture where Jesus would rescue his church from the great tribulation. They understood the rapture to be another event separate from Jesus’ Second Coming, which would follow the events of the tribulation.

Since a generation is 40 years, this led many to believe then that there would be a rapture in 1988. However, since Jesus did not return within 40 years of 1948 (the Biblical generation), then they were forced to create elaborate understandings of what a generation might be. One such preacher was Edgar Whisenant who sold 4.5 million copies of his book, 88 Reason Why Jesus Will Return in 1988. When the prophesied rapture failed to occur, Whisenant followed up with later books with predictions for various dates in 1989, 1993, 1994 and 1997. In spite of the unfulfilled and obvious false prophesies, people continued in confusion, undeterred in their efforts to build on the crumbling foundations of their end- times beliefs.

6 Ralph Woodrow, Great Prophecies of the Bible; (Riverside, CA; Ralph Woodrow Evangelistic Association, 1971), 148. 7 DeMar, 236.

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In 1970 Hal Lindsey wrote The Late Great Planet Earth8, selling 35 million copies, which cemented Darbyism into the hearts of many pastors emerging as leaders in that great wave of new believers which was known as the Jesus Movement. This effectively created a generation that believes more in Lindseys mythology than in understanding History and Bible. In 1980 he released the book The 1980s countdown to Armageddon9, implying the battle of Armageddon would happen soon. This deeply affected the thinking in America. The book was quietly taken out of print in the 1990s. Of course, he then published Planet Earth—2000 AD, which warned Christians that they should not plan to still be living on earth by the year 2000.10

Then in 1995, the first of a bestselling book series, Left Behind,11 was released which planted seeds of Darbyism into a whole new generation who were the children to the Jesus Movement believers. Due to the paranoia around Y2K (the year 2000) Americans were now primed with rapture fever. When all was over, Y2K was hype, but the Left Behind books sold 65 million copies. As a result, there was great confusion regarding a clear and simple biblical end-times doctrine. Even fewer people understood the true history of the church and the history of the emergence of many false doctrines. Instead of Bible, their doctrines became formed by Christian fiction. Now already fulfilled prophesies of the Bible were taken and put into the context of our future, resulting in fear and speculation.

Summary In summary, many of the foundational end-times prophecies have already been fulfilled. This is called Partial Preterist Eschatology. These already fulfilled prophesies include:

1) Matthew 24 Jesus’ Prophecy of the Great Tribulation of

2) Daniel 2 Gods Kingdom beginning at Jesus’ ascension, overtaking 4 kingdoms

3) Daniel 9 70 years of weeks (490 years) between Rebuilding Jerusalem and the Messiah coming to put an end to sin and the Jewish system of sacrifice

4) Revelation 4-19 The demise of the Roman and the Jewish Old Testament System

The idea that these prophecies are all referring to future events is a new concept. Church history, for the first 1800 years does not reflect acceptance of this theory which is called futurist eschatology. It grew from Darby, who read a single reaction to the Reformation. It is young, and only in the past 180 years or so has sprouted and taken root. It is now deeply imbedded in the American church and the global evangelical community in spite of not being supported by Church History or the Bible.

8 Hal Lindsey, with C.C.Carlson, The Late Great Planet Earth, Zondervan, 1970. 9 Hal Lindsey, 1980s Countdown to Armageddon, Westgate Press, Inc., 1980. 10 Welton, 29. 11Tim LeHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins; Left Behind Book Series; Tyndale House; a series of 16 fiction books printed from 1995-2007.

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