Any attentive reader of the Synoptic Gospels will understand that the Kingdom of God is the central theme. The reign of God has already entered human history in a unique way through the glorious person and work of Jesus Christ, but its consummation awaits a future intervention. So the Kingdom of God has to be seen as both present and future. The Kingdom of God has come; the Kingdom of God is coming.
Jesus took time to teach and answer questions concerning the future of the Kingdom. For the first sixteen centuries of Christendom, the eschatology of Jesus was sufficient. But in the seventeenth century, Johann A. Bengel set the return of Christ for the year of 1836, and in so doing he became the father of premillennialism. During the nineteenth century an entire system of dispensational eschatology was developed, and the idea of the pretribulation rapture of the church can be traced to J. N. Darby and the Plymouth Brethren. Concerning this dispensational eschatology, H. Ray Dunning writes, "For some reason it has become so pervasive among conservative Christians ... that it has assumed the status of orthodoxy among large groups of both laymen and ministers." Contemporary advocates of this Second Coming theory include John Walvoord, Charles C. Ryrie, Hal Lindsey, Tim LeHaye, Jack VanImpe, John Hagee and many others. While these dear men are my Christian brethren, and I rejoice in the Gospel they preach, I must in the interest of genuine revival make a statement: Christian Renewal Ministries believes in the Second Coming of Christ -- and I am convinced that there is some biblical support for the idea of a Rapture. But we do not subscribe to the feverish speculation and depressing theories of latter-day premillennialists who confuse a pretribulation Rapture with a general Resurrection, and who would set the time of the Lord's Return around current events (Israel, Russia, conflicts in the Middle East, the European Common Market, NATO, etc.) instead of the Word of our Lord concerning the obedience and empowerment of His Church.
George Eldon Ladd, an evangelical thinker and writer on the Kingdom of God, suggests that the most important single verse in the Bible might well be Matthew 24:14: "And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come." This verse was Jesus' answer to the disciples' question, "What will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the world?" Matthew 24:14 should help us understand something of when Christ shall return, and His parables on the Kingdom (Matt. 25:1-46) should help us understand something of the conditions of both the world and the church at the time of His return.
The Midnight Darkness
The first of Jesus' three parables on the Kingdom (Matt. 25:1-13) draws on the drama of an old Middle Eastern wedding celebration to show how it will be at the time of His return. The bridegroom and his ten male attendants would at some time around the midnight hour (but almost never at the exact minute of midnight) arrive at a significant place (under a certain large tree near the main house, at the end of a bridge over a stream, or at a large rock marking the boundary of the property, etc.) on the bride's father's estate. No one would know the place or the time when the groom and his party would arrive except the coordinator of the activities having to do with the bride and her ten female attendants. The ten girls would all gather with the bride at her father's home early in the day and hear the rules and be told to rest and sleep. The bride and her attendants would be wakened by calls before the time of rendezvous. This would come around midnight, but usually before. When the midnight cry went out, every girl was to trim her lamp (more like a torch) and see to her oil supply, because if any girl's torch went out on the way to the rendezvous, then and there she would be disqualified to be a part of the wedding celebration.
The parable refers to midnight as a symbol for darkness and lateness. Surely, we now live in a moral midnight, and though we do not know how late it is, we believe it is very late. What an hour for the Church of Jesus Christ to come awake and see His glory in revival and the harvest of souls!
The parable refers to midnight as a symbol for darkness and lateness. Surely, we now live in a moral midnight, and though we do not know how late it is, we believe it is very late. What an hour for the Church of Jesus Christ to come awake and see His glory in revival and the harvest of souls!
