Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians, which some would argue was his second (Wanamaker), or his first and second combined (Murphy-O’Connor), was written to encourage a novice community of mostly Gentile believers to stand firm in the face of persecution until the parousia of the Lord, when the wrath of God would come against the world and they would be delivered from their suffering and united with their Lord. This is the narrative—or eschatological—frame of the letter, and it controls Paul’s argument at every point.
The same can be said of his first letter to the Corinthians. They “wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Cor. 1:7–8). The rulers of the present age are doomed to pass away (2:6). The quality of the apostles’ work will be revealed when a day of fire comes (3:13). The Lord is coming to “bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and… disclose the purposes of the heart”, when everyone will receive his or her commendation from God (4:5). A “day of the Lord” is coming, when “the saints will judge the world”, and the righteous will inherit the kingdom of God (5:5; 6:2, 9). A time of distress is approaching; the “present form of this world is passing away” (7:26, 31). In the Lord’s supper they proclaim his death “until he comes” (11:26). The world will be condemned (11:32). The dead in Christ will be raised at his coming and will inherit the kingdom (15:23, 50-56). Paul prays that the Lord will come (16:22).
In fact, with the exception of Philemon, the same can be said of every one of Paul’s letters—even Romans. They are all written explicitly and intentionally in the light of an impending day of the Lord, a day of God’s wrath, which will entail severe affliction for the churches but also deliverance and vindication. Paul’s churches faced a more or less imminent “end”.
How are we supposed to deal with this, given that the world did not end imminently? We have the same problem, of course, with Jesus. [pullquote]There are two basic interpretive strategies open to us: we can reinterpret “imminent” or we can reinterpret “end”.[/pullquote]
We could say that the traditional understanding of the “end” is correct but that Paul got the timing wrong. He expected the world to come to an abrupt end in the foreseeable future—perhaps even before he himself died—but he was wrong about that because in fact one day is as a thousand years with the Lord, even the Son was kept in the dark about the timing, etc. That would allow us to keep our traditional “end” intact—the whole package of second coming, rapture, resurrection, final judgment, inheritance of the kingdom, new heaven and new earth, lake of fire. But it can be postponed indefinitely.
Or we could say that Paul was more or less right about the timing but that we have misunderstood his “end”. We could argue that he shared a Jewish-apocalyptic narrative in which YHWH, as creator of the whole earth, asserts his right to judge and rule over the idolatrous pagan nations, which have for so long refused to acknowledge him and oppressed his people. We would then suppose—once we have understood how apocalyptic discourse works—that his eschatology mostly addresses the historical crisis that would mark the transition from an old age of pagan hegemony to a new age in which Jesus is confessed as Lord by the Gentiles. I have developed this argument in [amazon:978-1620324592:inline].
This approach would mean that Paul has much less to say about our eschatological circumstances. The coming storm fills his horizon and he cannot see what lies beyond—except that he is certain that the creator God will have the final victory over the evil that has corrupted his creation (1 Cor. 15:24-28; Rom. 8:20-22). But it would mean that he has much more to say about the historical experience of the communities under his care. That makes him a much more responsible prophet and apostle. And I’m sure we can learn something from that.
Andrew-
Thanks for all of your posts. They’ve helped me a lot, and especially with eschatology.
What would you say to the idea that Paul got the timing right, and we even understood what he meant by his “end”, but he was just flat out wrong on it? In other words, Paul did expect the things our dispensationists friends think are still in our future to happen in his lifetime, but instead of Jesus coming in to save the day superhero style when Jerusalem fell in CE 70, Jesus was conspicuously absent and Rome won.
I’m sort of “trying that on for size” if you will.
@Kenton:
Thanks, Kenton, good question—that could perhaps have been a third option, but not a very constructive one.
First, I don’t myself think that Jesus and Paul were speaking about the same “end”. I think that Jesus’ horizon was the destruction of Jerusalem, but when Paul took the story about Jesus (including his eschatology) and proclaimed it to the nations, the horizon expanded. Paul’s horizon was not, finally, the fall of Jerusalem but the fall of pagan imperialism.
Secondly, I think that while it’s very difficult to know exactly how Paul imagined these things would work out, the language he uses points to a temporal, historical “end” rather than to a final or absolute “end”. Paul works primarily within the narrative world of the Old Testament, and there is no end-of-the-world or final judgment in the Old Testament. This has changed to the extent that the resurrection of Jesus points to a final renewal of all things. But the main story that he tells about Jesus has as its parameters the Old Testament prophetic narrative about YHWH and the nations.
@Andrew Perriman:
Thanks, Andrew. I guess I missed the different “ends” in your approach. I think that explains a lot.
@Andrew Perriman:
I don’t agree with your first point. IMO Jesus was not only talking about Jerusalem, he envisioned a just world run by Jews with Jerusalem as the “capital.” For all intents, that’s about the world, not just Israel, no?
@Paul:
That would make sense in many ways, as the culmination of the sort of prophetic narrative that is evoked at numerous points in the Gospels. But then why does he not more clearly draw on the language and imagery of a renewed city as a centre of worship and learning for the nations? His apocalyptic horizon, it seems to me, is the destruction of the city and the temple, not their reconstruction. Beyond that, we only have the vindication and reward of those whom he has sent out to proclaim this coming act of divine judgment on a wicked and adulterous generation. Why are there no parables of restoration? What new thing did he imagine emerging from the wreckage of the war against Rome, beyond the horizon of his teaching?
@Andrew Perriman:
Jesus died long before the Temple was destroyed. I don’t think the specific destruction of the Temple or war with Rome was on his radar. To the extent it is alluded to, it would be either the general concept that God punishes those who lose his favor or a later author putting words in his mouth. Like if someone wrote about Richard Nixon’s thoughts on the Covid-19 pandemic.
@Paul:
But then, to go back to your original point, we have a great number of statements in the Synoptic Gospels that seem to point, sometimes quite explicitly, to war and the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple, or something pretty catastrophic along those lines—numerous parables that end in destruction, the re-enactment of Jeremiah 7 in the temple, the motif of the killing of the prophets, the apocalyptic discourse, etc. But we have nothing that expressly suggests that Jesus envisioned Jerusalem as the hub of a righteous empire.
Obviously, it’s arguable that the tradition or the Gospel writers put the words of war and destruction in his mouth, but are we also to suppose that they took out of his mouth the vision of a just world run by Jews from Jerusalem? We might have to concede this if the pessimistic Jesus of the Gospels were a totally implausible figure, but he’s not.
In the end, I don’t see any historical or exegetical objection to the view that Jesus, like John the Baptist, foresaw the destruction of the city as a “final” act of divine punishment and made this the centre-piece of his prophetic teaching. The idea looms large in the Old Testament, Israel under Roman occupation would have been regarded by many (the Qumran community, for example) as an intolerable and perilous state of affairs, and there were good empirical reasons for thinking that at some point the Jews would revolt spectacularly and bring destruction upon themselves. The focus may have been sharpened in the transmission of the traditions over time, but the basic premise seems sound.
This article offers an interesting reflection on how Jesus and Josephus interpreted the event: William den Hollander, “Jesus, Josephus, and the Fall of Jerusalem: On Doing History with Scripture,” HTS Theological Studies 71.1 (2015).
Andrew,
Have you ever thought of doing some video tutorials? Your illustrations and diagrams make me think you could produce some really helpful tools. Short videos that highlight and illuminate how to read and understand scrpture through the narrative-histocial lens would be a powerful way to help people get outside the dominant understanding and read scripture in a fresh way. Just an idea.
Paul works primarily within the narrative world of the Old Testament, and there is no end-of-the-world or final judgment in the Old Testament.
As I understand it Andrew… I’d agree with the first half but not so much the latter. Paul’s “end” was in lock-step with Jesus’ — “the end” in view was the end of the old covenant age i.e., “their world”.
Not only did they share a common “timing” but they likewise shared the common “nature” of the eschaton, that is, the world that was to end was the Mosaic world of law righteousness. The New Testament’s ‘new creation’ came in Christ.
Maybe Paul had two eschatological horizons in view, or a further horizon came into view when looking at an imminent horizon. Maybe all imminent judgments are precursors of final judgment. That’s the general reading of Matthew 24 too, though the first horizon has tended to be underplayed. It would also make a lot of sense of Revelation — though obviously it isn’t Pauline. (Or is it?).
It wasn’t just Paul. Every NT writer, and Jesus himself, predicted that the end would be within that generation. This is the reason for C. S. Lewis’ famous quote about eschatology being a complete embarrassment, since the prophet himself was theoretically completely wrong. His solution was to propose that the Father had kept everyone essentially in the dark (this is basically MacArthur’s approach), so that you can’t blame them for being wrong. Christianity as a whole has yet to address this head on.
@Doug Wilkinson:
Agreed. I don’t think we will ever be able to figure what exactly ancients had in mind, their way of thinking was so different than ours. That said, whatever they thought, however we care to interpret it, turned out to be wrong. There was no end times, and it seems obvious there will be no second coming.
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