The Conditionalist Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 1
III. Sets Pattern for Eschatological and Chronological Sequence
Let us now examine another related facet of our Lord’s many-sided teaching emphasis. As would naturally be expected, Christ, the Supreme Preacher and Master Teacher of all time, set the eschatological pattern for all His followers to sense and follow. He presented the foundational truths of life, death, and destiny, not as isolated abstractions but always in their basic eschatological perspective and orderly sequence. CFF1 214.2
They were always set forth in vital relationship to the last things, the end events, the judgment scenes and finalities. They were ever presented in the light of the climactic Second Advent with its tremendous accompaniments—its final rewards and punishments, and its resurrection unto eternal life and happiness for the righteous and its resurrection unto damnation and utter destruction for the sinful rejectors of salvation and truth. In other words, the eschatological overtone could always be heard in His utterances. That was one of the distinguishing characteristics of His message to men. CFF1 214.3
More than that, Christ presented these end events as the culmination of the impelling sweep of the centuries. No events are merely isolated and unrelated. Christ outlined the over-all life history and vicissitudes of the church He was founding, tracing its course clear across the Christian Era. But, to make the picture more comprehensive, He portrayed the church in the midst of the outer turbulence and oppressions of the nations and the world, along with her own inner departures from the faith. CFF1 214.4
True to the characteristic pattern of Bible prophecy, Christ thrice goes back over the Christian Era, and retraces in part, each time with increasing fullness and greater detail the closer He carries us, in His portrayal, to the end of the age and to His own second advent in power and glory, which will terminate the affairs of mankind. There were diversions, but there was an undeviating progression. The continuity is unmistakable. CFF1 215.1
However, Jesus left to John the revelator and to Paul and Peter and others the portrayal of the tremendous multiple events of the coming day of the Lord, which is introduced by the Advent—along with the accompanying conditions and contingent events of the subsequent millennial period, which follows the Second Advent and the cataclysmic end of the age. And all this is, in turn, succeeded by the oft-foretold establishment of the everlasting kingdom of righteousness, presented under the term the “new heavens and a new earth” (2 Peter 3:13; Revelation 21:1), to continue forevermore. CFF1 215.2
2. REPETITION—CLEARLY ESTABLISHED PATTERN OF PROPHECY
It is generally recognized that Daniel the prophet presented four paralleling lines of prophecy, depicting different approaches and emphases, in his multiple comprehensive outline of the world history of the centuries. These are recorded in Daniel 2, Daniel 7, Daniel 8, Daniel 9, Daniel 11, and Daniel 12—each in the series climaxing with the establishment of the kingdom of God. And in the Apocalypse, John the revelator likewise presents a series of paralleling prophecies covering the Christian Era—the seven churches, the seven seals, the seven trumpets, and the consecutive beasts of Revelation 12-14 and Revelation 17-19—each prophetic outline going back and repeating, and all ending at the Advent, prior to the unique period of the millennium, set forth in Revelation 20. 1 CFF1 217.1
Each and all are followed by the final destruction of sin and sinners, along with the author of sin, at the millennium’s close. In the same way Christ, the fountainhead of prophecy, three times covers the Christian Era with cumulative force in His master prophecy of Matthew 24. His portrayal thus harmonizes with the characteristic pattern of all Bible prophecy. CFF1 218.1
This reiteration was all necessary to bring out and unmask the fatal penetration of apostasy from within, along with persecution from the nations from without, and the complex conflicts between the two, reaching their close only at the Second Advent and final disposition of all things. This multiple portrayal was necessary, in order comprehensively to compass it all—just as four Gospels were required in order adequately to portray the matchless single life of Christ. This master prophecy is all presented in Matthew 24, and the paralleling recitals recorded in Mark 13 and Luke 21. CFF1 218.2
3. FIRST COVERAGE LEADS UP TO THE “END.”
The first coverage of the Christian Era appears in Matthew 24:3-14. Beginning with the destruction of Jerusalem, in A.D. 70, Christ carries us through the early period of the appearance of “false Christs” and their deceptions, and the “wars and rumours of wars” that were to characterize the breakup of the Roman Empire, and then into the Middle Ages. Christ here adds this cautionary note, “These things [that He had just depicted, up to this point] must come to pass, but the end is not yet” (Matthew 24:6). CFF1 218.3
Next He portrays the subsequent wars, uprisings, famines, pestilences, and the dreadful betrayals and religious persecutions that would mark the subsequent centuries. Then comes another outbreak of false prophets and deceivers. But now He reaches the significant time when some would “endure unto the end,” and be saved. The “end” is now near. And finally comes the “end,” ushered in with this identifying feature: “And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come” (Matthew 24:14). CFF1 218.4
That is the supreme sign of the “last days,” or “time of the end.” CFF1 219.1
4. SECOND COVERAGE LIKEWISE LEADS TO ADVENT
Christ then reverts to the time of Daniel’s prophecy of the great “tribulation,” under the gross ecclesiastical apostasy of the Middle Ages and subsequent centuries. So devastating was its decimation that the days of religious persecution had to be “shortened,” else no flesh would be saved (Matthew 24:22). Next comes the final irruption of false christs and false prophets, and another attempt to deceive the very elect. But none need be deceived by sensational claims of Christ’s coming in the “desert” or in the “secret chambers” (through the latter-day phenomena of Spiritualism). Thus the second time Jesus leads up to the “end,” and the Second Advent. “For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be” (Matthew 24:27). CFF1 219.2
5. CELESTIAL SIGNS ARE CHRONOLOGICALLY PLACED
Finally, in the third recapitulation, Christ presents a series of unconcealable celestial signs that would slightly precede His actual advent. He places the first of these chronologically just after the terrible “tribulation” part of “those days” (near the close of the fateful 1260 years of Daniel 7, extending from A.D. 538 to A.D. 1798), 2 as He declares: CFF1 219.3
“Immediately after the tribulation of those days [ending mid-eighteenth century] shall the sun be darkened [May 19, 1780], and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven [Nov. 13, 1833], 3 and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken: and then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory” (Matthew 24:29, 30). CFF1 219.4
Thus we are brought up the third time to the climactic “end” and Advent when “he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other” (Matthew 24:31). CFF1 220.1
And that gathering of the elect is by means of the resurrection of the righteous from among the dead and by the translation of the living righteous. Hence this over-all portrayal is tied in inextricably with our theme and quest, and deals with the final, eternal destiny of all men. CFF1 220.2
6. “HOUR” NOT KNOWN, IMMINENCE CAN BE KNOWN
As a reinforcing postscript Christ tells how, in the closing days before His coming, conditions similar to those preceding the Flood will be repeated, with its sudden, unexpected, universal destruction: CFF1 220.3
“But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be” (Matthew 24:37-39). CFF1 220.4
But “no man” will know beforehand the “hour” or precise time of Christ’s coming—not even the angels (Matthew 24:36). But all men can know when it is near (Matthew 24:37-44). That is why Christ gave this chronological outline prophecy—to disclose the proximity, so men can prepare for the coming event. Nevertheless, the “hour” will come as an unexpected surprise, when the “Son of man cometh” (Matthew 24:44, 50). Especially searching is Christ’s denunciation of those appointed as spiritual guardians and teachers in the church, who will nevertheless be unaware of the proximity of the time and the certainty and the crucial outcome of the impending Advent. Such, our Lord solemnly says, shall be cut off, or cut asunder, amid “weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matthew 24:51). Here again is disclosed the fate of the wicked and the doom of the hypocrite. CFF1 220.5
That, in brief, is the Master’s great eschatological prophecy of the Christian Era and the consummating end of the age. It is the “Master Outline of the Centuries” of the Christian Era. There is nothing comparable to it in the Word. It is the foundation portrayal for the diversified but eventful details added by Paul, Peter, John, and others, who wrote under inspiration, and in conformity therewith, as we shall see in subsequent chapters. CFF1 220.6