The High King of Heaven: Discovering the Master Keys to the Great End Time Debate by Dean Davis (Redemption Press, 2014).
THE CONSUMMATION: A BIBLICAL SCENARIO
We have come to the end of our journey. Having traversed many a biblical foothill, having scaled many an eschatological mountain, we have reached the summit. Now it is time to take in the view.
From the beginning our goal has been to behold—with clarity and conviction—the Blessed Hope of the Church.
To this end we embarked on our journey by looking closely at the Kingdom of God. First, we discerned its true nature: that it is, in essence, a direct spiritual reign of God, through Christ, by the Spirit; and it is also the realm that that reign creates. Next, we discerned its structure: that the Kingdom enters history in two simple stages: the Kingdom of the Son (already here), followed by the Kingdom of the Father (not yet here), with the two stages being separated by a single Parousia of Christ at the end of the present evil age. To our surprise and joy, we found that this careful NT investigation of the Kingdom actually enabled us to discern the true biblical outline of all Salvation History.
Building upon this, we next went in search of the proper NT principles for interpreting OT Kingdom prophecy (OTKP). This enabled us to discover and articulate what we called The New Covenant Hermeneutic, the NT method for understanding the OT in general, and OTKP in particular. We then applied that hermeneutic with good success to some of the most important and challenging OTKP’s, showing that in the end they all stubbornly resist the premillennial approach, but wonderfully open up and fall into place when viewed beneath the light of the simple, two-staged idea of the Kingdom taught in the Didactic NT.1
Thus encouraged, we ventured into that most “Old Testament” of New Testament books, the Revelation. We began by carefully examining its purpose, structure, and literary genre. This opened us up to the possibility that Revelation 20 might be the last of six “mystical” depictions of the course, character, and consummation of the spiritual reign of the High King Heaven, the exalted Lord Jesus Christ. And when we actually studied Revelation 20, we saw that this interpretation was by far the best.
Drawing near to our goal, we turned once again to the NT, this time to see if its teaching on the Consummation confirmed our suspicions about the true (amillennial) shape of Salvation History. We looked carefully at the Christ-exalting design of the Consummation. We discerned its Christ-centered structure. And we closely examined the top 16 eschatological texts of the DNT. Through all of this, we finally reached our destination. We beheld—with clarity and certainty—the Christ-centered unity of the Consummation. We saw that Christ will indeed come again once at the end of the present evil age, to raise the dead, judge the world in righteousness, destroy the present earth and its works by fire, and create new heavens and the new earth, the eternal home of the redeemed.
In sum, over many highways and byways, over many paths and peaks, we have sought and found the one true Blessed Hope of the Church.
And now, from high atop Mt. Pisgah, let us survey the Promised Land one final time.
A Consummation Structured for Hope
Above all things, God has structured the Consummation with a view to enhancing the glory of his Son (John 5:23). But in so doing, he has also structured it with a view to illuminating, encouraging, motivating, equipping, and empowering the Church Militant. In short, he has designed it so that his pilgrim people may have hope.
On this crucial theme we recall the words of the apostle Paul:
For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age, looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for Himself His own special people, zealous for good works. –Titus 2:11-14
Frankly acknowledging the challenges of Christian discipleship in an age dominated by the powers of evil, the apostle strongly exhorts God’s people to live in a manner worthy of their calling. However, in order to encourage them to rise to those challenges, he also gives them a great hope. Very aptly, he calls it the Blessed Hope. There is just one of them: the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. However, there are many reasons why it is blessed. It is blessed because God has made it so simple, so easy to envision, and so easy to proclaim. It is blessed because when the Savior appears, he will do so many wonderful things, things that God has revealed in Scripture so that his saints can “look for” them with eager anticipation. And it is blessed because the contemplation of each of these things is meant to fill them with courage, confidence, and joy as they journey on to the borders of Canaan, where, at long last, they will enter the Promised Land (Acts 3:19, 1 Peter 1:3-9, Rev. 12:13:17).
Therefore, as we bring our own journey to a close, let us take a few moments to remember what we have learned about our Blessed Hope. And as we do, let us consider how God has designed each of its elements to awaken in our hearts a special kind of hope; and how the sum of those hopes makes our one Blessed Hope blessed indeed! Continue reading