What I say to you, I say to everyone: ‘Watch!’
Mark 13:37 KJV
How one begins has a great deal to say about how they will get where they are going.
In general, people will always bring their pre-suppositions to anything they set out to do. People are made from their previous knowledge, and the study of Biblical subjects is no different.
What differs in these subjects, however, is that the topics discussed within are of an eternal truth, and often deal on matters of eternal life and death. While one could have errors in the subject of eschatology and not affect ones understanding of salvation, the subject of the end times can, indeed, have a dramatic effect upon the overall understanding of one’s Christian walk. The main thing is always the main thing, but how the rest is developed is important as well.
So, when we come to the subject of Revelation, where do we begin? Realizing there are so many differing approaches to the subject, so many interpretations and variations, where does one begin to simply find what the book says?
We are not looking primarily for what helps motivate people, nor brings a message the body needs to hear. These will come, but, what we must investigate first, no matter the consequence, is what the Word says.
Some people are clearly wrong. There are enough interpretations out there, and enough of them are in direct contradiction here, so to have one opinion is mutually exclusive to others. This must simply be settled. If nothing else, the simple idea of an ‘all-inclusive’ doctrine can be ruled out simply because it will never be inclusive of the doctrine laid out in this paragraph. Truth has consequences, and the reality is not from holding back in some ambiguity, but in proclaiming the truth of a matter as plainly and directly as possible. Not studying at all is likewise impossible as Paul wrote to Timothy to “study to show yourself approved”.
So, if we set out with the intention to find the answer to the question, “What does the Bible say?”, and we determine that we will, in fact, make judgments for or against certain opinions based on the text, we can see that we will make progress towards finding our solution, as the Word says, “Seek and you will find”.
Now, the temptation would be to start right off into the popular subjects–the identity and role of the antichrist, the rapture and whether it is before, after, or during the tribulation, the Battle of Armageddon, the millennium, and the role of Israel. Unfortunately, all of these themes are developed from the study of Eschatology as a whole, and the conclusions are derived from that study, rather than contributing to it.
To get to the root of it all, then, you really have to come back to the text, the whole text, and nothing but the text.
This will be the theme and purpose of this study. Not what popular opinion has come to agree upon, but on what is written in the pages that we can read for ourselves, and come to our own conclusions.
If we agree upon the authority of Scripture, and form a consensus that historical Biblical prophecy was fulfilled literally, to the each individual word (albeit, interpretation and timing subject to it’s Author), we can therefore conclude that a reasonable study of the events of the End Times is Biblically within our grasp.
And, while we do see symbolism beyond those explicitly described as symbols (e.g. Revelation 6:5, there is probably no literal ‘scales’, but these symbolize something), and there are particular expressions of language which must be accounted for (such as a ‘blood moon’ referring to a lunar eclipse), there is also a spiritual reality, not symbolism, that is also being conveyed.
But, suppose we start where Jesus did. In the midst of it all, if we cannot agree with the Words in Red, we have no other place to go.
Jesus said,
And saying, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel.
Mark 1:15
And,
Then said he, Unto what is the kingdom of God like? and whereunto shall I resemble it?
Luke 13:18
Jesus was laying the foundation for His entire ministry with these first words. Jesus was saying that the thing long awaited and expected was, indeed, at hand. For all intents and purposes, as others have indicated, this means the Kingdom was there, then.
There were many speculations about what the ‘Kingdom of God’ would be in contemporary Jewish thought at the time, but regardless of expectations, Jesus was the authority in interpreting Old Testament prophecies, because He was their author.
And, here, Jesus is answering that one simple, and basic question. What is the Kingdom like? His answer was a mustard seed and yeast. That is, it is faith in the heart of a believer, and the inner working of the Holy Spirit within (while some may have differing opinions on the interpretation of these two short parables in Luke 13:18-21, we will develop them later, and show their most straight-forward interpretation is as above).
And, at the very outset, Christ was saying, in effect, that the Kingdom was here. At its very basic, this is what ‘at hand’ meant, as is proved by the very way it is introduced–the time had been fulfilled. Further, in places like Matthew 12:27, speaking of His deliverances, Jesus said that if he cast out demons by the finger of God, then the Kingdom had come upon them (those that had been listening right then).
So, the Kingdom was fully come in Jesus’ day. It was not ‘inaugurated’, planted, or begun in a mystery, but it was here. It would not later be consummated,
It is the wrong way to go about things to look at the world today and ask where is so-and-so in Biblical prophecy. Rather, the Word is our pattern, and as we study it, we will see world events fit into it.
This, then, is the understanding we come to, as Jesus instructed His disciples to teach others what He had taught them in the Great Commission (Matthew 28:20).
Jesus said, “The time is fulfilled; The Kingdom is Here” (Mark 1:15, above). We see no other way for Him to say these things, without directly implicating the Daniel 2:44; 7:14 one. With the expectation of the Old Testament prophecies, and the Words that Jesus Himself, God incarnate, wrote, there could be no other way to understand these words, other than this, without making Jesus a deliberate deceiver and a liar. That the Kingdom, indeed, was spiritual, as it had always been, merely indicated that the expectations were wrong. If it could be shown that the spiritual did not, in some way, measure up to what was actually written, perhaps an argument could be conceived that it must be physical, as most futurists we have encountered maintain, but, since the realms of faith and the Holy Ghost lie largely untried due to lack of belief, the failure in expectations lies wholly upon man, and not God. As it is written, Let God be true and every man a liar.
The truth is, Mark 11:23-24 are just as true today as they were when Jesus spoke them (just after cursing a literal fig tree and watching it literally wither). Just as they were true then, they are true now, and just as that Kingdom that cast out demons (Matthew 12:28) was what made the miraculous possible, the same is the operative influence today.
For others, arbitrary and unscriptural formulas, such as turning days into years or too great a tendency to make things overly symbolic, have produced such a wide array of interpretive systems that the list of supposed interpretive formulas stretches out for some distance.
Yet, for us, the simple solution lies in the man Christ Jesus.
Either He had a Kingdom, or He didn’t. And, either that Kingdom is greater than every other Kingdom, and broke them small, and ruled uncontested, albeit not perfectly, for 1,000 years, or it didn’t.
But, here, history is on our side, and all that is required is to find the historical and scriptural evidence to back up our claim.
What we find, however, is that not only is a consistent and supportable chronology both possible and demonstrable from history, but we see, coming from various threads throughout scripture, they all point, astoundingly, at the same point. Starting with the Kingdom of Jesus Christ, they avoid the heresies of full-preterism, as well as deal with the issues concerning the prophecies of Israel. Further, they show the progress of the church throughout history, and the power of the Spirit over the affairs of men, no matter what the outside look like, God wins, and has been winning, and will always win.
While we see that many will actually hear from the Spirit, and find many pieces to the puzzle, when you have the wrong picture on the front of the box, you will always try to put the pieces you have connected together into the wrong place. Ultimately, only after many failures, do you bring them together into a cohesive whole, but, still, where holes abound, does it truly look like what the Lord intends?
Where one starts, indeed, has a great deal to do with where one ends up.
For us, the only place to start is Christ, the cross, and the Gospel of the Kingdom (Acts 28:31).
It is only as we build on the faith of the Gospels that we produce men like the apostles. And, upon this rock alone, the man with the revelation, has Christ always built His church.