It is generally recognized that the goal of redemptive history (humanity’s restoration to God’s perfect reign of peace and righteousness) is consummated in the “Second Coming” of Christ.

 

Because of its significance and because of the multiplicity of competing views on the subject, there is an urgent need to refocus with intensified concentration on the volume of information in scripture bearing directly (and indirectly) on Christ’s Second Appearing.  In this connection there are two basic but commonly neglected areas of study that are indispensable for a comprehensive exposition of this prodigious redemptive-historical event: The Old Testament Background and The Transforming Ministry of the Holy Spirit.

 

First, any approach to Christ’s Second Coming that fails to take into consideration God’s promises to Old Testament Israel will miss the end and scope of human redemption. There is not a single teaching in the New Testament concerning Christ and his Parousia that is not rooted in the Old Testament and its journey toward the promised future of Israel.  Eschatology in New Testament scripture is nothing other than Old Testament promise taken up by Christ in the “fullness of time” and fulfilled in the New Covenant that God promised to make with “the house of Israel and with the house of Judah” (Jer.31:31-34; Heb. 8:6-13).

 

Christ challenged his countrymen to search their scriptures because they testified of him (John 5:39).  He claimed no identity, mission, or office as prophet, priest, and king other than that spoken by Moses and the prophets (Lk.24:27, 44; Acts 10:36-43).

 

Paul repeatedly spoke of Christ as “the hope of Israel” (Acts 23:6; 24:15; 26:6; 28:20). Before Agrippa he affirmed his strict adherence to “the promise to which our twelve tribes hope to attain.”  He affirmed that in preaching Christ he was “saying no other things than those which the prophets and Moses said would come” (Acts 26:7, 22).  Instead of “defecting” from the Jewish faith by turning to Christ, he had become “separated to the gospel of God which He promised before through His prophets in the Holy Scriptures, concerning His Son Jesus Christ our Lord” (Rom. 1:1, 2).  Additionally, Paul knew that the Jewish rulers rejected Christ because they did not know “the voices of the Prophets which are read every Sabbath” (Acts 13:27).

 

It is not necessary to dwell on this point, because the doctrine of a coming Messiah to redeem God’s covenant people (Israel) pervades the Old Testament.  Also, Christ’s mission to “become a servant of the Jewish people to maintain the truth of God by making good his promises to the patriarchs” is central in the New Testament (Rom.15:8, NEB). However, what has been overlooked is the inseparable connection of Christ’s “Second Appearing” with his “making good” God’s promises to Israel, which in turn is salvation for the Gentiles—“and at the same time to give the Gentiles cause to glorify God for his mercy” (Rom 15:9).  This reflects what Jesus told the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well, “salvation is of the Jews” (Jn.4:22). But when and how does this salvation come?

 

We submit that there is not a single aspect of gospel salvation that does not relate to God’s fulfillment of his promises to Israel, and that total fulfillment was realized in Israel’s promised “New Covenant” within the framework of Christ’s Parousia. From this biblical standpoint, the past 2,000 years is not in any sense an intervening age between the cross and Christ’s “Second Appearing.” If it were, then it is completely void of “the salvation” that is “of the Jews,” the only salvation of which Jesus is the “author (leader) and finisher” (Acts 4:12; Heb.5:8, 9; 12:2).

 

Conceiving the last two millennia as a separate and complete “church age” that stands between the consummation of the Jewish age and Christ’s Parousia is the fundamental error in the dualistic eschatology of both amillennialism and premillennialism.

 

The amillennialist position holds to a consummated change within the Cross/Pentecost time frame with respect to the fulfillment of Israel’s New Covenant promises. They see the kingdom, the church, or Christianity (“the age to come”) as having arrived in fullness by the time the Spirit was poured out on Pentecost. This is a premature, “past-already” eschatological view.  It redefines the Spirit’s work by making the “things to come” things that consummate one’s individual salvation at the supposed end of the “Christian age.”  Consequently, the two thousand years since Pentecost is perceived as being “the last days” when the Holy Spirit would be poured out (Joel 2; Acts 2).

 

Many of this persuasion, however, believe that the Spirit’s revelatory work was completed in the apostolic period. This has given rise to endless debate over the work and gifts of the Spirit since that time—not to mention the problems and questions about the imminent expectations regarding “things to come” entertained by the first-century church for which the Spirit was the teacher and the pledge. The basic weakness of amillennialism is its inability to deal with numerous post-Pentecost passages that specifically address the impending redemption, restoration or salvation that not only is of Israel but for Israel in conjunction with the perfecting of the “firstfruits.”  See, for example, the salvation of “all Israel” after the coming in of the fullness of the Gentiles (Rom.11:25-32).  Note also the receiving of the salvation foretold by Israel’s prophets at the “revelation of Christ” (1 Pet.1:5-13). When Peter wrote this, the end of all things was “at hand” (4:7, 18).

 

By way of contrast, premillennialism’s case argues for a postponement of Israel’s promised future, equating the outpouring of the Holy Spirit with the beginning of an intermediate-yet-prolonged “church age” of spiritual blessings for the Gentiles. For them the “things to come” in the “great and notable day of the Lord” refer to a literal, earthly restoration of Israel after the order of the Old Testament for a thousand years. This means, contrary to everything that is taught in scripture about Christ’s ascension to his world above, that he must return to the world from which he departed in order to “make good God’s promises to the fathers of Israel” (Rom.15:8). However, this counters Paul’s new understanding of Christ when, from the standpoint of the cross, he wrote, “Even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him thus no longer” (2 Cor. 5:16).  Paul simply is saying that we no longer look for the promises of God in the world of Israel according to the flesh. Rather, in view of Christ’s departure from that earthly realm (which could not give life, Gal.3:18-21), Paul’s new knowledge of Christ with respect to Israel’s Messianic future was grounded in the spiritual, heavenly realm (the world above, the New Covenant cosmos) to which Christ ascended, and wherein he was about to be revealed in glory. In this connection see Phil. 3:1ff, Col. 3:14; Heb.12:22-24.

 

Premillennialism rightly connects the fulfillment of God’s promises to Israel with the Second Coming of Christ. They correctly see that Israel’s restoration comes after Pentecost (Romans 9-11). They know that the “remnant” in Romans 11:5-7 (the firstfruits of the gospel) is not the totality of “all Israel” that would be saved at Christ’s coming out of Zion (Rom. 11:26-27) after the coming in of the fullness of the Gentiles (v.25). Incidentally, the “remnant” in verses 5-7 are not equated with “the enemies of the gospel” who (although they were enemies) “are beloved for the sake of the fathers,” and thus the objects of God’s mercy through his mercy shown to the Gentiles, “for the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable” (11:28-32).

 

The weakness of premillennialism is its failure to see the restricted time beyond Pentecost for the coexistence of Old Testament Israel and the firstfruits church. It is not for an indefinite time known as the “church age,” after which the church allegedly is removed from Israel’s olive tree in order for Israel to be grafted in according to their former state under the Law.  The time of their coexistence is “the last days” of the Old Testament era, the 40 years from the cross to the fall of Jerusalem.

 

Furthermore, from a first-century last-days perspective, the reverse side of the incoming of the firstfruits church is the diminishing of Old Covenant Israel.  At the end of the 40 year period lay Israel’s fullness, reception, or resurrection that conforms to the perfection of the “firstfruits” who had attained the full image of Christ (Rom.8:18-29; 11:12,15; 2Cor 3:7-18).  This is the glorious future of Israel and Jerusalem that was foreseen by the prophet Joel (3:16-21), anticipated by the apostle Paul (Rom. 11:25-27), and explicated by John in the full context of Christ’s “at hand” revelation or Second Appearing (Revelation 1:1-3; 22:6-21).

 

This brings us to the second crucial area of study that provides an abundance of information on the when and how of Christ’s Parousia and therefore of Israel’s ultimate salvation through which all families of the earth are blessed without distinction (Gal.3:8, 26-29).

 

Our purpose here and in articles to follow is to focus on the period of time between Christ’s departure and his Second Appearing from the standpoint of the eschatological, transforming work of the Holy Spirit.

 

By “transformation” we mean the change from one state of being to another through the changing of the covenants. Few scholars have approached the study of the Holy Spirit and the Spirit’s work from this perspective. This accounts for the traditional extension of “the last days” and the miraculous gifts of the Spirit beyond the clearly stated end of the Old Covenant age. (See, for example, Matt.24:1-3; 1 Cor.13:8-10).

 

Christ and his Parousia, not the Holy Spirit, are the focus and goal of the Spirit’s work. Jesus said of the Spirit, “He will testify of Me” (John 15:26).  This point is important.  The coming of the Spirit in Christ’s absence (after his departure from the world below) did not represent the beginning of a work parallel to or distinct from Christ’s work relative to his preparing a place for his disciples (John 14:1-3). Every facet of the Spirit’s work focused on what Christ did through the Spirit during this “second stage” of his ministry.

 

The fundamental difference between Christ’s ministry begun in the earthly realm but completed in or through the Spirit was his new position in the world above (the spiritual realm of the “better covenant”).  This accounts for the necessity of Christ’s departure from the world below in order for the Spirit to come (John 16:7).  Not until Christ was positioned where he was to be revealed was it possible for the Spirit to begin his ministry of glorifying Christ by disclosing the “things to come” that Jesus claimed as his own (John 16:13-15).

 

The Holy Spirit, therefore, was Christ-centered in all that he was sent to do in “the last days.” This is drawn out clearly in the promise of the Spirit in Acts 1 and in the activity of the Spirit in Acts 2. This two-fold pattern (of promise and activity) holds true throughout the New Testament.

 

First, let us look at the Christ-centricity of the promise of the Spirit as recorded in Acts 1:4-8.  In verse 8 Jesus said to his apostles, “But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”  Christ, not the Spirit, is the subject of the “witness” of the apostles.  The central function of the “power” received from the Spirit (as seen, for example, in 1 Cor.2:9-16) was to enable the apostles to know, and therefore to teach “the things that have been freely given to us by God” (v.12).  Jesus said, “All things that the Father has are Mine. Therefore I said that He (the Spirit) will take of Mine and declare it to you” (John 16:15).  The Spirit would teach them all things, and guide them into all truth (John 14:26; 16:12-13).  Paul wrote concerning the “mystery of Christ which in other ages was not made known to the sons of men, as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to His holy apostles and prophets” (Eph.3:4-5).

 

Hence, the promise and power of the Spirit is first and foremost Christ-centered serving to reveal his things of his world (the world above) wherein his revelation (Second Appearing) would occur when the revelatory work of the Spirit (the witnessing mission of the apostles) was completed. Inherent in the power to reveal truth (that is, to bear witness of Christ) was the power to authenticate the word “with signs and wonders, with various miracles, and gifts of the Holy Spirit” (Heb. 2:4; Mk.16:17-20). Mark’s statement, “the Lord working with them and confirming the word through the accompanying signs” (v.20), shows that the Spirit’s work was the work of Christ.  The Spirit is the Spirit of Christ (Rom. 8:9).

 

We need to point out, however, that Mark’s statement about Christ’s working “with them” (his apostles) through the Spirit was not the fulfillment of his “coming again” (Parousia—presence or arrival).  It was the means to this goal of redemptive history. Christ’s Parousia would come through the Spirit-guided apostolic witness.  This is the object of Jesus’ statement, “I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you” (John 14:18).  This parallels his promise, “And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also” (14:3).

 

Second, the Christ-centricity of the Spirit’s activity (or ministry) is introduced in Acts 2. The chapter opens with the outpouring of the Spirit on Pentecost day, but as the events unfold it is apparent that the meaning of Pentecost centers, not in the coming of the Spirit or the interior life of the disciples who received him, but in the crucified, resurrected, and ascended Jesus, whom God has made “both Lord and Christ” (2:36).

 

What took place in connection with the outpouring of the Spirit (as recorded in verses 1-21) was the groundwork for what follows in verses 22-47; namely, the preaching of Jesus as Old Covenant Israel’s Christ. The apostles preached Christ, not the Holy Spirit. They drew attention to Christ and his saving work, not to some alleged “second work” or “second blessing” of the Spirit additional to or independent of Christ. In every case the “more to come” was centered in Christ.

 

Throughout Acts and the Epistles it was to Christ and his work of restoration that the apostolic preaching bore witness until all was consummated at “the coming of the great and notable day of the Lord” (Acts 2:20,21; 3:10-21). To this end, the Spirit was poured out “in the last days.”  This eschatological purpose of the Spirit’s Christ-centered work sheds light on the meaning of the gift, the promise, and the pledge of the Spirit (Acts 2:38-39; Gal. 3:14; Eph.1:14), as well as the total framework of the Spirit’s “transforming” ministry (2Cor. 3:7-18).  These and other aspects of the Spirit’s eschatological function during the transitional period (the last days, the closing period of the Old Covenant age, the time of Christ’s absence) will be considered in greater detail in part 8 of this series.

 

 

URL: http://www.presence.tv/cms/jrn-presenceofgod-07.php

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