To mainline New Testament scholars, it seems highly unlikely that early Christian scenarios about the future, wrong in their own time, might nevertheless be correct about some future time.
Switching channels the other night, I came across the Christian Broadcasting Network during a fundraising campaign. CBN founder and former presidential candidate Pat Robertson was speaking earnestly about signs that Jesus may return soon, perhaps by the year 2007.1
Robertson is not alone in thinking that the second coming of Christ may be near. In the 1980s, the best-selling non-fiction author in the English-speaking world was Hal Lindsey. His many books, with titles like The Late Great Planet Earth, Countdown to Armageddon and There’s a New World Coming, all trumpet the same theme: Biblical prophecies about the return of Christ and the end of the world may be coming to pass in our generation.2 The approach of the year 2000 is likely to increase the sense of expectation.
As I listened to Robertson, I thought about how differently mainline biblical scholars view this matter. We do not see the New Testament as speaking about the second coming of Christ in our time or at any future time.
Why not? The primary reason is the way we see the New Testament: as a collection of first-century documents produced by first-century authors writing for the first-century Christian communities. Rather than seeing these texts as referring to events of our time, or of any future time, we see them as telling us about the past: They tell us what people in the emerging Christian movement believed.
The widespread New Testament references to the second coming of Christ tell us that many early Christians thought they were living in “the last days.” Paul, in his early letters, seems to have expected to live until the second coming; this the most obvious way to read 1 Thessalonians 4:13–18 and 1 Corinthians 15:51–52.3 So also the authors of Mark and Matthew: Mark 13 (also found in Matthew 24 and sometimes called “the little apocalypse”) refers to signs preceding the coming of the Son of Man on the clouds of heaven, all of which, according to the author, was to happen in that generation.
Similarly, the author of the Book of Revelation (John of Patmos) believed that the second coming of Christ was near. His visions, he told his audience, concerned “what must soon take place,” for “the time is near,” and Christ is “coming soon.”4 In short, the texts tell us that many early Christians believed that the second coming of Jesus would occur in or near their time. And, to say the obvious, they were wrong.
The crucial question then becomes: What do we do with their mistaken beliefs about the nearness of the second coming? One option (followed by Robertson, Lindsey and others of like mind) is to transfer the expectations found in these texts to a time still in the future. They speak about what will happen in the end time, whenever it comes.
But to mainline scholars, the transfer of these texts to a future time seems unwarranted. The only possible justification is the claim that the Bible is infallible and inerrant, and that therefore what it says about the end of the world will someday come to pass (for it cannot be wrong). Without this assumption, one would never think of transferring to our time these late first-century beliefs about the second coming.
To mainline scholars, the claim that the Bible is inerrant is untenable in itself. Moreover, the notion that these texts refer to our time or some future has other very serious difficulties. It means, for example, that the central message of the Book of Revelation (“The time is near!”) was not meant for the people to whom it was written, but for whatever generation lives in the last days. That would be odd: John of Patmos wrote to seven Christian communities in Asia Minor telling them that Christ was coming soon, but the message wasn’t meant for them.
Moreover, the suggestion that the imagery of these texts refers to our time or some future time gives to the imagery meanings that could not have been guessed by either the original author or audience. Consider, for example, these contemporary interpretations of Revelation: The falling stars of chapter 6 become orbiting nuclear missiles re-entering the atmosphere, the giant locust of chapter 9 becomes helicopter gunships and 666 (the number of the beast in chapter 13) points to a computer in Brussels issuing international identity numbers made up of 18 digits divided into three groups of six.
The point is not simply that these specific interpretations may seem fanciful. Rather, the whole approach—thinking of this material as referring to events still in the future—requires that we say that the original recipients of the Book of Revelation had absolutely no possibility of understanding it. Those poor folks, they thought the letter was for them.
Thus, to mainline scholars, it seems highly unlikely that early Christian scenarios about the future, wrong in their own time, might nevertheless be correct about some future time. Rather than seeing “the second coming” as referring to a future event, we are inclined to understand the return of Christ differently. It seems likely, for example, that the author of John’s Gospel believed the second coming of Christ had already happened, namely in the coming of the Spirit.5 Indeed, Christ comes again many times: into the life of the individual and the community, and in a variety of ways, including through Word and sacrament.
Beliefs about the second coming matter, politically and religiously. Christians who think the second coming may be near are unlikely to be concerned about the long-term future of Earth. Why be concerned about the environment, over-population or conservation of resources if Earth has only a few decades left? Are we to cherish and care for Earth? Or is Earth irrelevant because heaven is our home and the end of the world may be near?
Beliefs about the second coming also affect images of the Christian life. Is the Christian life about being ready for the second coming, which typically leads to an emphasis upon strong belief and righteousness? Or is the Christian life about a radical internal, change (the coming of Christ into one’s life), which produces a transformed way of seeing and being and living? Such a transformation leads to a loving of humans, of life and of Earth itself.
Switching channels the other night, I came across the Christian Broadcasting Network during a fundraising campaign. CBN founder and former presidential candidate Pat Robertson was speaking earnestly about signs that Jesus may return soon, perhaps by the year 2007.1
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His calculation used as its starting point the 1967 Israeli capture of the Old City of Jerusalem and the site of the Temple. The second coming of Christ may occur within “a generation” (forty years) of that event.
2.
Though a minority, the number of Christians who think this may be true is substantial. In the United States, perhaps 15 to 20 percent of Christians—20 to 30 million people—belong to churches that emphasize that the second coming may be near.
3.
Other passages in Paul also indicate that he thought the end was near. For example, in 1 Corinthians 7:26–31, Paul’s eschatological beliefs (beliefs about “the end”) shaped the advice he gave about marriage. Paul, however, was not primarily an “end-of-the-world” preacher; there seems to be an equal or greater emphasis in his letters about the new way of life that had already come into existence. For a compact provocative treatment of Paul that emphasizes his “present eschatology,” see Robin Scroggs, Paul for a New Day (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1977).
4.
These affirmations of nearness are emphasized in the introduction (Revelation 1:1, 3) and conclusion (Revelation 22:6, 7, 10, 12, 20). For an illuminating treatment of Revelation from the vantage point of mainline scholarship, see Adela Yarbro Collins: The Apocalypse (Wilmington, Delaware: Michael Glazier, 1979); Crisis and Catharsis: The Power of the Apocalypse (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1984); and her essay in the Anchor Bible Dictionary (New York: Doubleday, 1992), vol. 5, pp. 694–708.
5.
This is implied by portions of Jesus’ “farewell discourses” in John 13–17, esp. 14:15–31 and 16:5–24. For a perceptive analysis indebted to Raymond Brown, see Robert Kysar, John: The Maverick Gospel, rev. ed. (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1993), pp. 97–112. Kysar concludes that, for John, Christ “has reappeared in the form of the Paraclete” (Spirit); and Christian “experience of the Spirit is their experience of the reappeared Christ” (p. 111).
