R.C. Sproul: Three Questions on his Eschatology

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From a Ligonier “Ask R.C. Live” Event (July 2014) beginning at the 36:47 mark:

Transcript:

Questioner (Kathy): Do you believe that we are living in the end times that we read about in the Book of Revelation?

RC: Yes and no. Unless you think I’ve fallen into neo-orthodoxy and paradoxical theology, let me explain that. In one sense, everything that takes place after the ascension of Christ is in the end times. The end times started in the New Testament. We’re still in the end times. Now, I presume, though, what you’re asking me is, are we at the end of the end time so that we’re coming close to the return of Jesus as it was set forth in the Book of Revelation?

Now, one of the big questions in understanding the Book of Revelation, and interpreting the Book of Revelation, is tied to when it was written. The majority report of the dating of the writing of the book Revelation is that it took place in the decade of the 90s of the First century. There has been some significant scholarly work in recent years that argues, and I believe persuasively, that the Book of Revelation was written before the fall of Jerusalem, in the 60s, during the time of Nero, when Nero’s most famous nickname throughout the empire was “the Beast.”

And so the question is, if we could know for sure when the Book of Revelation was written, we would have a better handle on what period of history it was describing. Now, I’m in a minority report here, but in the Olivet discourse in Matthew’s gospel as well as in Luke and Mark is when Jesus talks about the signs of the times, and he talks about the destruction of the temple and the destruction of Jerusalem, and he said, “This generation will not pass away till all of these things are fulfilled.”

Now that phrase has been one of the most hotly debated statements ever to come from Jesus. I went to a liberal seminary, and it seems to me, I didn’t actually, but it seemed that I heard every day in class that Jesus taught that he was coming back within 40 years, and he failed to keep his promise. And that’s one of the reasons why we can’t believe that the Bible is the inspired word of God.

And so in terms of higher critical assaults on the trustworthiness of scripture and the trustworthiness of Jesus, the point of attack is on Jesus’ predictions about the nearness of the coming of the fulfillment of his prophecies there in the Olivet discourse. Notice also the timeframe references that are throughout the Book of Revelation, where it talks about those things that are “near” at hand.

And so the ultimate question is this, were the things that Jesus talking about on the Olivet Discourse and in the Book of Revelation, were those principally pointing to events that were going to take place in the First century, culminating in the destruction of Jerusalem and of the exile of the Jews. That’s one view.

The other view is that all of these things refer to a distant future time, and some people will say what… to both – there was a primary and a secondary, so this becomes very complicated in piecing it all together.

But in any case, however we understand Revelation and when it was written, and what it was referring to, or the Olivet Discourse, we’re still looking forward to the return of Jesus. And he hasn’t come yet.

And as I take great hope and optimism in this, is that every day that passes, he’s that much closer. And when I see what’s going on around us today, I have every reason to think we’re getting closer and closer and closer.

But of course, a lot of that is my hope. And I also realize it could be another 2000 years before he comes. I’m not into making projections, predictions of dates and days or the hours of that sort of thing, but we should certainly be vigilant today, and we should be looking for the coming of Christ.

Lee: And thank you, Kathy. So R.C., you hold to what’s called a partial preterist view, is that correct?

RC: Yes. Not a full Preterist view. Full, the full Preterist teaches that all of the New Testament prophecies regarding the future kingdom and the future company of Christ were all fulfilled in the first century. I don’t believe that. I still think there’s much more to happen, but I also think, and I’m in a minority at this point, I should tell you that, I think that we’ve radically underestimated the significance of what took place in 70 AD and the destruction of Jerusalem.

Lee: So how many chapters of the Book of Revelation do you believe have been fulfilled in that first century prophecy?

RC: Well, it would be most of them up until the last couple chapters when we come to New Heaven and the New Earth and the final consummation of the kingdom of God.

Lee: So, there’s plenty to look forward to in that?

RC: But understand this too, Lee, that in the whole scope of systematic theology, theology is a very broad science. We deal with the doctrine of God, we deal with salvation, sin and the Holy Spirit and Christology. And then we have the science of eschatology, which is study of the last things.

First of all, of all of those different subdivisions of theology, probably the most controversial and the most difficult is eschatology because so much more dealing with future events that we’re not looking back on, and we don’t have the 2020 vision of hindsight.

Secondly, so much of the information about the future prophecies of the New Testament come to us in highly imaginative and symbolic language, which makes it very easy to misunderstand.

Now, when I talk about the different kinds of areas of theology, as a theologian, my confidence and convictions of this doctrine and that doctrine are not always equal. I’m 100% convinced of the doctrine justification by faith alone. Okay? I don’t have any doubts in my mind in that. I don’t have any doubts about the deity of Christ or his substitutionary atonement. Those things are, I have total assurance of, but you asked me about questions in eschatology, and I’ll say, maybe it’s this, maybe it’s that. I don’t have views that are so solidified and cemented I get vehemently dogmatic about it, if you understand what I’m saying.

Lee: Yeah, yeah.

Knowledge Puffs Up? What Does This Mean Exactly?

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Alisa Childers answers:

Transcript:

Anti-intellectualism will keep you from understanding your Bible and from living a vibrant Christian life. And I want to refer to a very particular passage that a lot of times people will pull out when they want to be a little bit anti-intellectual. And so that is 1 Corinthians 8:1 that says, “Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.”

Now we’ve talked on the podcast before about using principles of hermeneutics, how to interpret your Bible properly. And the one thing that you never want to do is form an entire theology based on one Bible verse where you haven’t considered its broader context, where you haven’t asked questions like who wrote this, who did they write it to, what was the historical context, what was the cultural context, what was happening, what was going on in that time and place, what kind of a book is this, how did the original audience interpret this. We can’t base theology on something that sounds one way to us without investigating its deeper context.

So let’s take that verse, 1 Corinthians 8:1, knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.

So right before that phrase, knowledge puffs up, this is the apostle Paul, he wrote this, “now about food sacrificed to idols.”

So the context of him saying knowledge puffs up had to do with food sacrificed to idols. And what he goes on to explain is that some Christians knew that idols weren’t real and others didn’t know that, and so they believed that eating food sacrificed to idols made it ceremonially unclean. And so what Paul’s point was here was he was exhorting the believers who had the greater knowledge and understanding that idols weren’t real, to show love to those who had a weaker conscience and to refrain from eating food sacrificed to idols in front of them so it wouldn’t stumble them. And his point was that you don’t know something just so you can lord over somebody, but so that you can know that, but you can exercise that knowledge in love and build other believers up and not our own arrogance.

And the other principle that we talk about a lot is to let scripture interpret scripture. You never want to form your theology based on just one verse of scripture. So let me read a few other passages from the Bible that talk about knowledge.

Proverbs 1:22 says that fools hate knowledge.

Proverbs 1:5 says a wise man will hear and increase in learning, and a man of understanding will acquire wise counsel.

Hosea chapter 4 says that God’s people perish for lack of knowledge regarding the law.

And 2 Peter 2:1 tells us to add to our faith goodness and to goodness knowledge.

In Philippians 1:9, Paul prayed that your love will keep on growing in knowledge and every kind of discernment. In fact, Paul even praises knowledge as a part of spiritual warfare.

And again, we’re going to do a whole episode on the theology of spiritual warfare. But primarily when the Bible talks about doing spiritual warfare as a Christian, it’s talking about battles in the realm of ideas. It’s about truth. It’s about speaking truth into lies.

And so in 2 Corinthians 10:5, Paul says we demolish. Notice all the words here. I want you to think about the words and how they have to do not with power encounters with demons, but actual knowledge and truth propositions.

So here’s what it says in 2 Corinthians 10:5. “We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God.”

Isn’t that powerful? Spiritual warfare is demolishing arguments, pretensions, anything that raises itself up against the knowledge, things you know of God.

Proverbs 15:4 says, the discerning heart acquires knowledge.

Proverbs 1:29 warns of the destruction that follows a hatred of knowledge.

So over and over in scripture, we’re commanded to seek out knowledge. And over and over again, we’re warned of the consequences if we don’t.

And I mentioned earlier that Jesus himself said, “Love the Lord your God with all your mind.”

He was saying we have to love God with all of our intellectual capacity. So anti-intellectualism, if you have that as your presupposition, you will not understand the Bible because you won’t dig deep enough to use good tools of hermeneutics, to be hungry for the knowledge that you find in scripture.

And frankly, here’s another thing that I notice and it just makes me wonder, but there are people, and I think we probably all need to search our hearts on this one, but there are people who want God to give them instant relief from whatever is afflicting them. Or maybe they want information about their future and they want God to show up with these power encounters. They want God to answer all of their questions about the future and relieve their suffering, but they don’t want to crack open His word that he’s already given us. Like God has given us His word, which is His self-revelation. It’s how we know how we’re supposed to live as Christians, how we’re supposed to conduct ourselves in church and together with other believers, how we’re supposed to live the things that we’re supposed to leave behind and repent from and turn from, how we can assess doctrine and decide if somebody is a false teacher or a true teacher, if someone is a wolf or a sheep. We have to know the word of God and not just cherry-pick to match what we already wanted to say, but to dig deep into what God has already revealed. So that, I think, is a question for all of us if we might be falling into some of this anti-intellectualism is to say, am I just wanting the relief from this thing, but I don’t want to bother cracking open the scriptures to get to know God myself, because He has revealed Himself in scripture.