How is it that the Blessed Hope came to us through the twists and turns of history? Today most of the visible leaders in the evangelical movement hold to a futuristic view of prophecy. By futuristic, I mean the view that most of the book of Revelation is yet to be fulfilled. Prominent radio preachers like John MacArthur, Chuck Swindoll, Charles Stanley, leaders such as Bill Gothard and Jerry Falwell, not to mention Billy Graham, have gone on record as believing that the Lord Jesus will come again to take His saints home before a time of worldwide testing and judgments known as the Great Tribulation. After this time Christ will physically return to earth with His glorified saints to rule over His kingdom on the earth. Hal Lindsey believed all these things and wrote a feisty dramatization of the book of the Revelation. It sold in the millions, and by the end of the decade of the 1970s the New York Times declared The Late Great Planet Earth “the book of the decade.”
Today Tim Lahaye also holds to this skeleton outline of future prophetic events, and with Jerry Jenkins is promulgating this view in their own novel form via the Left Behind series. I think devotees are panting for volume nine in the series (not available from Gospel Folio Press).
To most of you the endorsements of evangelical celebrities means nothing. But this is an occasion when history shows how the truth vindicates itself, or as our Lord said, “Wisdom is justified of all her children” (Lk. 7:35). Sooner of later the truth becomes so plain that it virtually becomes another article of the faith.
But let’s go back and review how these truths gradually have taken hold and gained such general acceptance among true believers.
There have been evident changes, we believe, in prophetic understanding from our present day going back to the ministry of the apostles of Jesus Christ. Here is a brief look at the major changes in understanding on prophetic events.
The APOSTOLIC Period
In the Apostolic Period, Paul appears in 1 Corinthians 15 and in 1 & 2 Thessalonians to be the champion on teaching the blessed hope of Christ’s coming for His own above the other apostles. But before his home-going he complained about a rejection of his teaching and forewarned that after his parting false teaching would arise.
The EARLY CHURCH FATHERS
From the death of the apostles to the third and forth centuries the prominent Christian leaders called “the Early Church Fathers” were premillenial, that is, they believed in a literal thousand year reign of Christ on the earth. But they also believed that the Church would suffer under the Antichrist. From their vagaries on prophecy and many basic doctrines, it is obvious that Paul’s predictions of a rejection of his teaching had certainly occurred.
FROM AUGUSTINE TO THE REFORMATION
From Augustine to the Reformation in 1517 ad the idea of a premillenial coming of Christ became rare indeed. Origen (185-254) introduced the method of allegorically interpreting Scripture. Allegorical interpreters assumed that Scripture meant something other than what it plainly said. This led the way for Augustine (354-430) who wrote The City of God. Augustine refuted the heavenly calling of the Church and presented the idea that the Church has an earthly calling to subdue the earth this side of Christ’s return. Augustine is considered the father of Amillenialism, a belief which rejected the idea of a literal thousand year reign of Christ on the earth, but instead spiritualizes the promises of the future kingdom, and applies them to the current blessings of salvation. This new view held sway in the Roman Catholic Church and was also adopted by the Reformers.
THE POST-REFORMATION PERIOD
From 1517 to 1831 the allegorical method slowly, and by stages, lost ground to the literal interpretation of prophecy. Initially the Reformers felt that there was no national future for of Israel. They were amillenial, as were the Roman Catholics. But on one point they disagreed with the Papists. They felt, as had the Lollards and Waldensians, that the office of the Papacy was both the Antichrist and the Great Whore of the book of Revelation, all combined in one.
In the early and mid 1600s Puritan commentaries appeared which taught—according to Romans 11:25-27—that there would be a future awakening among the Jewish remnant unlike the little-by-little evangelism that had been seen throughout history among the Jews. This view took hold and introduced a futuristic element into Puritan thinking. Some Puritans such as Jeremy Burroughs and Thomas Goodwin were premillenial. Most, like John Owen, scoffed at the “Chiliasts,” (from the Greek word for millenium).*
In 1831 at the Powerscourt prophetic conference outside of Dublin, Ireland, the ground was laid for understanding a premillenial, pretribulational rapture of the saints. For the full teaching see J. N. Darby’s Collected Writings, edited by Wm. Kelly (in 34 volumes of which 4 are on prophetic themes). Darby was principally an expositor who reacted against systematic theology. The downside of this emphasis is that Darby was not so good at pulling together the lines of truth plainly. For devotion and spirituality, Darby is excellent, but his teaching is better stated by his pupils.
Nevertheless, all of Darby’s books are in print, and we assume that people actually do read him. I am told that in years past the biggest customers that Bible Truth Publishers had for the Collected Writings of J. N. D. was among students at Dallas Theological Seminary. Of books by Darby’s pupils, the best are by Sir T. B. Baines, William Trotter and William Kelly.
These authors rushed in where the angelic Reformers and Puritans feared to tread. The Reformers seemed to read books like the Revelation in a similar way to which we would read the Song of Solomon—as a book of rich poetic imagery and hidden devotional lessons. A favorite approach was to apply the judgments of the Revelation to the historical events of John’s own day, or of the events orbiting the Reformation. On the main, prophetic events were simply neglected. So when Darby and his pupils ventured in, much of the prophetic portions of Scripture were an unexplored frontier.
SINCE 1831
From the 1840s to the 1880s a series of books were issued which laid the foundation for what is called a premillenial coming of Christ to earth and a pretribulational rapture of the saints. They did so by teaching a literal and futuristic view of prophecy. Let me list the books that presented the arguments from Scripture that won the field. T. B. Baines, The Lord’s Coming, Israel, and the Church, 448 pages (the second edition, revised and enlarged, was reprinted in series 2, volume 11 of The Serious Christian series). This book gives the heart of dispensationalism. Interestingly, this book ends with a lengthy exhortation on church principles (most of which is quite wholesome, but which regrettably includes Darby’s exclusivism).
Like Darby before them, it was prophetic understanding that led brethren like Baines and Trotter to adopt their Church principles. Later it would be this prophetic understanding that would move the Fundamentalist Movement to leave their Protestant denominations and to join in to the Independent and Free churches of America.
Baines also wrote a commentary, The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which is also reprinted in The Serious Christian series. G. H. Pember wrote The Great Prophecies Concerning the Gentiles, the Jews, and the Church of God which covers much the same material that Baines gives on prophecy. William Trotter’s Plain Papers on Prophetic and Other Subjects, 568 pages, is available from Bible Truth Publishers. Trotter’s clarity and spirituality sets this book head and shoulders above the majority of prophetic studies. William Trotter and T. Smith collaborated on a series entitled Eight Lectures on Prophecy, 293 pages (presently out of print). Smith gave three of the eight lectures. Because the lectures were delivered in 1851, the book is unencumbered by the many current controversies. It treats the reader as a novice, and so it is perhaps the best book to give to someone uninitiated in the study of prophecy.
William Kelly’s Lectures on the Second Coming and Kingdom of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, 395 pages, published in 1865, is classic Kelly. He was prodigious in his writing. Also look for his books: Elements of Prophecy, Christ’s Coming Again, The Lord’s Prophecy on Olivet, The Coming and Day of the Lord, and The Heavenly Hope. Kelly also gave us serious expositions of the prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, the Minor Prophets and he did two separate expositions on the Revelation. The first of these that he produced, Lectures on the Book of Revelation, 502 pages, was the book that won respect from Bible scholars across Europe. In that book Kelly refutes the historical interpretation (popular among the Reformers and Puritans) and shows instead the futuristic meaning of Revelation.
Other useful books of that period include F. C. Bland’s Twenty-One Prophetic Papers, and Edward Dennett’s The Blessed Hope. In somewhat the same school, Sir Robert Anderson wrote The Coming Prince. Anderson gives the best treatment of the seventy weeks of chapter 9 of Daniel’s prophecy.
These books are important in that they deal with all the important prophetic subjects in the Psalms, Daniel and the other Prophets, the Olivet Discourse, 1 Corinthians 15, 1 & 2 Thessalonians, and the Revelation. The sweep of dispensational thinking was clearly laid out by these men, and best of all, these authors lived the force of their teaching. They were fully persuaded from the Bible of the true character of the world, it’s ultimate judgment, and therefore the heavenly calling of the Christian. This is what makes these old writers so obviously different from most of the current crop of prophetic writers.
There is a direct link from Darby’s prophetic teaching to current pretribulational thinking of popular authors and preachers. John Nelson Darby (1800-1882) visited America on some seven trips abroad. He preached in the pulpit of the St. Louis Presbyterian Church of James H. Brookes (1830-1897). Brookes imbibed Darby’s dispensational teaching and became the father of American Fundamentalism. He personally taught Cyrus Ingerson Scofield (1843-1921). Scofield became a pillar of that Fundamentalist movement, and he mentored Lewis Sperry Chafer (1871-1952) who wrote Chafer’s Systematic Theology, and co-founded what is now Dallas Theological Seminary. Dallas Theological teaching is weak in many areas, but however distant they are from the heart of dispensationalism, they have traditionally taught the skeleton of prophetic events. Their influence, along with the Scofield Reference Bible, and the Scofield teachings coming from Moody Bible Institute and other institutes like it have influenced evangelical churches throughout the English speaking world.
Written by John A. Bjorlie