04 Mar CHANGING THE TRAJECTORY OF WHAT WE BELIEVE
To divide history into two ages is a very strange thing. You don’t open any history book and find two ages. There are many ways to divide history, but “to divide it into two ages takes a radical commitment to a singular point of view.” (1) God has said what He is going to do: this is the singular point of view that Jesus, John the Baptist, and the apostles were committed to.. Jesus interpreted his life and mission as fulfilling what God had said He was going to do. God prepared His people to recognize what He was going to do through His prophets: in a coherent, cohesive, unbroken narrative spanning centuries. Jesus, John the Baptist, and the apostles picked up that narrative and ran with it.
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for our sins to rescue us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father (Galatians 1:3-5)
Now, brethren, concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him, we ask you, not to be soon shaken in mind or troubled, either by spirit or by word or by letter, as if from us, as though the day of Christ had come. (2 Thessalonians 2:1-4)
For since by man came death, by Man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive. But each one in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, afterward those who are Christ’s at His coming. Then comes the end, when He delivers the kingdom to God the Father, when He puts an end to all rule and all authority and power. For He must reign till He has put all enemies under His feet. The last enemy that will be destroyed is death. (1 Corinthians 15:20-26)
John the Baptist, Jesus, and every one of the apostles believed history was rushing toward a cataclysmic end of the age.
As Jesus left the temple and was walking away, His disciples came up to Him to point out its buildings. “Do you see all these things?”
He replied. “Truly I tell you, not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down.”
While Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to Him privately. “Tell us,” they said, “when will these things happen, and what will be the sign of Your coming and of the end of the age?” Jesus answered, “See to it that no one deceives you. For many will come in My name, claiming, ‘I am the Christ,’ and will deceive many. You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. These things must happen, but the end is still to come. (Matt 24:2-6)
What Jesus predicted about the Temple came true in 70 AD. It was apocalyptic. The destruction of the temple and Jerusalem fulfilled the horror of judgment the Jews had long associated with the day of the Lord. But the son of man did not return to take his throne to rule his kingdom from Jerusalem. God did not make all things right. He did not create a new heaven and a new earth. He did not destroy the wicked. And He did not bring the age to come. The trajectory of what christians would believe–about what God had said He was going to do–was about to change..
After the deaths of the apostles and the destruction of Jerusalem, the early church fathers arose. They were Gentiles trained in Greek Platonic thinking, and they forsook the apocalyptic gospel as it had been preserved by the Jews for so long, Origen would be one of the most influential and prolific among the early church fathers. (185-253 AD) He is revered as the first Christian theologian; his work still guides Christians today. He was unmatched in passion and rigor, choosing prison rather than to renounce his faith in Jesus. But he rejected the Jewish apocalyptic gospel, spiritualizing it, He redefined and reimagined it., interpreting Scripture from the wellspring of Platonic thought, seeing Scripture as allegory and metaphor for “deeper” spiritual truth.. The trajectory of what Christians would believe about the kingdom, the return of Jesus, and the age to come was radically changing. The church began to persecute the Jews. The church saw itself as the true Israel, and all that God had promised in the Old Testament was seen as being fulfilled in Jesus Christ. Reframing the apocalyptic narrative changed its trajectory..
But what had God said He was going to do? Moses, the first of the prophets, told Israel that in the future they would turn from God so thoroughly that He was going to drive them from their land and scatter them among the nations. But one day, He would bring them back to the land.
When you are in distress and all these things have happened to you, then in later days you will return to the LORD your God and listen to His voice. For the LORD your God is a merciful God; He will not abandon you or destroy you or forget the covenant with your fathers, which He swore to them by oath. (Deuteronomy 4:29-31)
Thousands of years later, the modern holocaust came upon the Jews. They were never in greater distress. But the worst thing that could happen to them worked to bring about the best thing that could happen to them. On November 29, 1947, the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution calling for the establishment of a Jewish State. God was orchestrating history to fulfill what He had said He was going to do. He was bringing the Jews back to their land, in later days, as He said He would, But for those on the new trajectory, this posed a problem. For them, the unanticipated return of the Jews to the land had to be a zionist scheme. They do not recognize the Jews as the legitimate heirs of Israel, but see them as “occupiers.” These find themselves among those described by the prophet Zechariah (13:3) “On that day, when all the nations of the earth gather against her, I will make Jerusalem a heavy stone for all the peoples; all who would heave it away will be severely injured.”
When John the Baptist, Jesus and the apostles stepped onto the stage of history, they believed the apocalyptic gospel. They were not wrong. They were not uninformed. They were not unenlightened. No one can spiritualize or allegorize Scripture to strip it of the apocalyptic gospel without damaging the ground on which they stand. God is moving to fulfill what He has said He is going to do. But what do we believe?
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