The Doctrine of Imminence in Two Recent Eschatological Systems

By Robert L. Thomas

[Robert L. Thomas is Professor of New Testament, The Master’s Seminary, Sun Valley, California.]

Throughout history imminence has been a prominent part of the church’s teaching about events connected with the second advent of Jesus Christ. It began with the church’s earliest writers[1] and continues to the present day. Expectation of an imminent happening was seemingly universal among the church fathers, even though their writings do not express complete agreement about what that happening would be. In supporting the posttribulational stance among early church writers, Ladd wrote, “The expectation of the coming of Christ included the events which would attend and precede His coming.”[2] Lea concludes regarding the fathers that the expectancy of the early church was a series of events that would precede and surround Christ’s actual advent.[3] Walvoord saw in these early writings a form of “incipient” pretribulationism with its associated idea of imminence.[4]

Both amillennialists and premillennialists endorse the teaching that the Lord could return at virtually any time.[5] Though they differ regarding the details, they agree that either the personal coming of Christ or the events associated with His coming could occur at any moment. Postmillennialists are alone in denying the New Testament doctrine of imminence in the present day.[6]

The widespread belief in the imminence of end-time events and Christ’s return is, of course, based on the Scriptures. The Book of Revelation builds its case around the imminence of His return. The phrase ἐν τάχει (“soon”) in the book’s opening verse offers encouragement to the faithful among the readers that their predicted deliverance is very close.[7] Moffatt appropriately called this focus on immediacy “the hinge and staple of the book.”[8] The repetition of ἐν τάχει and other literary indications in Revelation indicate that relief for the faithful from persecution along with judgment to the rest of the world, may happen at any moment. References to imminence in Revelation include the following: (a) ἐν τάχει in 1:1 and in 22:6; (b) ταχύ (“soon”) in 2:16; 3:11; 22:7, 12, 20; (c) the use of ἐγγύς (“near”) in 1:3 and 22:10; (d) the “thief” simile in 3:3 and 16:15; (e) the futuristic use of the present tense of ἔρχομαι[9] (“is coming”) in 1:7; 2:5, 16; 3:11; 16:15; 22:7, 12, 20; (f) the metaphor of the judge at the door in 3:20; and (g) the use of μέλλω in 3:10, 16.[10] Compounded with many references to imminence in other New Testament books,[11] these literary devices show why the church from its beginning until the present has viewed end-time events, including the coming of Christ, as something that could occur or begin to occur at any moment.

This article surveys and evaluates how two recent eschatological schemes have responded to this understanding of the imminence of Christ’s return and its surrounding events.

Preterism

Preterism is the view that descriptions in Revelation pertain not to yet-future times but to events that have occurred in the past. Recently R. C. Sproul has adopted a kind of preterism—one that Greg Bahnsen held before his death, namely, that most of Jesus’ predictions about His future coming referred to the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70 and the events leading up to it.[12] The position interprets the occurrence of “soon” in Revelation 1:1 in light of Matthew 24:34, where Jesus promised, “This generation will not pass away until all these things take place.” It accepts Jesus’ teaching of an imminent return, but also stipulates a time limit within which the predicted events must occur, a limit reached about forty years after Jesus spoke those words.

Gentry reasons this way: “If, as it seems likely, Revelation is indeed John’s exposition of the Olivet Discourse, we must remember that in the delivery of the Discourse, the Lord emphasized that it … was to occur in His generation (Matt. 24:34).”[13] From that point Gentry proceeds with a chapter on the temporal expectation of the Apocalypse.[14] Sproul has a similar chapter on Revelation, but he wrote that “this generation,” referred to in Matthew 24:34, limited the period during which Jesus’ coming would transpire to thirty or forty years,[15] a limitation similar to Gentry’s view.[16] DeMar[17] and Mathison[18] follow essentially the same approach regarding the meaning of “this generation.”

The above-named individuals fall into the camp of what may be called “moderate or partial preterism.” Because of a few passages such as 1 Thessalonians 4:13–18, they support the teaching of a future resurrection and kingdom.[19] They distance themselves from “full or plenary preterism,” which denies the idea of a future bodily resurrection.[20] Sproul, Gentry, and others do allow for a future bodily resurrection and kingdom in the eternal state.

At least three facts negate the view held by both plenary and partial preterism on Matthew 24:34. First, when Jerusalem was destroyed, the gospel of the kingdom had not been preached to all nations, as Jesus had said it would be by the time of the end (24:14). Sproul responds to this objection by claiming that the gospel had been preached throughout the Roman Empire by A.D. 70.[21] However, “all nations” (πᾶσιν τοῖς ἔθνεσιν) in 24:14 covers more than just the Roman Empire; it includes the entire world of Gentile nations. The gospel had not spread that far by the time Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans.

Second, in A.D. 70 Christ did not personally return in the clouds, as He had promised He would (24:30). In response to this obstacle Sproul approvingly cites J. Stuart Russell, who says 24:29–31 is poetic and symbolic, in keeping with Old Testament passages that speak of God coming to judge.[22] Gentry’s response is the same; he states emphatically, “No scriptural statement is capable of more decided proof than that the coming of Christ is the destruction of Jerusalem, and the close of the Jewish dispensation.”[23]

Such answers are examples of resorting to a nonliteral interpretation when a literal interpretation does not fit into the eschatological system being espoused. In the Olivet Discourse Jesus plainly promised the Jewish nation that at some time in the future He would personally return to pass judgment on their response to His plea for repentance. The judgment against Jerusalem through the Romans in A.D. 70 clearly does not fulfill that promise.

Third, the most formidable obstacle is that Jesus could not have been stipulating a thirty-to-forty-year period in which His promised return would occur, because just two verses later He informed His listeners that no one, including Himself, knew when all His predictions would come to fruition: “But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone” (24:36). Since He did not know the time, as He stated, He could not have set a time period within which His coming must occur.

Sproul responds: “Because the day and hour are not known does not preclude the application of a time-frame as lengthy as a human generation. Someone, for example, could predict that an event will take place in the next forty years, and then qualify the prediction by saying, ‘I don’t know the particular day or hour’ within that span of time.”[24] Sproul’s response, however, is remarkable in light of the preterists’ criticism of contemporary date-setting for the return of Christ. DeMar, who is particularly critical of modern-day date-setters, subtitled his book Last Day Madness with the words The Folly of Trying to Predict When Christ Will Return. Yet he, Sproul, and other preterists are guilty of the same practice in their analysis of the first-century outlook. Just as some recent students of prophecy suggested that Christ would return forty years after the establishment of the Jewish state in 1948,[25] so preterists claim that He had to return within forty years after His words in Matthew 24:34. Recent date-setters have said Christ’s declaration—that no one knows the day or hour of His return—does not preclude a knowledge of the general time period of His return. And preterists are currently interpreting His words similarly in reference to a first-century situation.

Clearly this was not the intent of Jesus’ words in Matthew 24:36. Less than two months after He said that no one knows that day or hour, Jesus said no one knows the “times or the epochs” (Acts 1:7). He thus answered His disciples’ question about the time of restoration for Israel’s kingdom. In conjunction with His comment about the day and hour Jesus clarified His meaning with three parables: those of the householder (Matt. 24:43), the wicked slave (24:48–51), and the foolish virgins (25:1–12).[26] The behavior of guilty characters in these parables makes sense only if they did not know when the thief, the master, or the bridegroom would arrive. They would not have grown tired of waiting if they had known that the time of arrival was no more than forty years away. The householder would not have been caught unaware by the thief, the wicked slave by his master, or the foolish virgins by the bridegroom if they had known even approximately how soon they would be visited or how long the delay would be. The householder was probably not “expecting” a thief; the evil slave did not expect his master to return “for a long time” (v. 48); and the virgins too underestimated the time of the groom’s arrival. All were surprised by the sudden unexpected return. Jesus’ words about the day and hour must include ignorance about the general time period too.

If “this generation” in 24:34 does not refer to a stipulated period of time, to what does it refer? Jesus’ use of the expression earlier in the same day as His Olivet Discourse is important in answering that question. Matthew recorded it as part of Jesus’ seventh woe against the scribes and Pharisees: “All these things shall come upon this generation” (23:36). A careful tracing of Jesus’ words in 23:29–39, observing the interchangeability of “this generation” with the second-person-plural pronouns shows that “this generation” is a qualitative expression without chronological or temporal connotations.[27] It refers to a kind of people Jesus encountered at His first advent and also to the same kind of people who rebelled against God’s leadership throughout the Old Testament. It refers to the kind of people who will not see Jesus again and who in the future will reject Him until the nation of Israel repents and says, “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord” (23:39). In other words “this generation” sets no deadlines for the time when Jesus will return.

The preterist relegation of imminence to a prescribed period in the first century A.D. does not satisfy the criteria of the text, particularly its focus on imminence throughout the period of Christ’s absence.

“Pre-Wrath Rapturism” and Its Kinship to Posttribulationism

According to the “Pre-wrath Rapture” view the tribulation or seventieth week of Daniel is imminent or almost imminent, but prophesied events within that week must occur before Christ returns.[28] This view therefore opposes the teaching of Christ’s imminent return and in that regard is closely akin to a posttribulational view of His coming.[29] Both positions place the Day of the Lord at the end of Daniel’s seventieth week and then proceed to point out various prophesied events that must precede that day.[30] The difference between the two views is slight and pertains to the duration and exact location assigned to the Day of the Lord. Pre-wrath rapturism conceives of the day as a period of undefined length toward the end of the tribulation during which the trumpet and bowl judgments are fulfilled, while posttribulationism identifies the day as a brief, undefined period of divine judgment after the tribulation. Both positions deny the imminence of Christ’s coming for the church, the former by placing the imminence of the Day of the Lord within the seventieth week and the latter by substituting expectancy for imminence[31] (though in some instances both talk about expectancy rather than imminence).[32]

The Handling of Revelation 6:17

An exegetical point that pre-wrath rapturism and postribulationism have in common is their handling of Revelation 6:17. The key word in the verse is ἦλθεν in the statement “the great day of their wrath has come.” Both the pre-wrath and the posttribulational positions say that this aorist indicative verb does not refer to past action, as aorist indicatives normally do. Instead they say that it refers to action that is about to begin by calling it either an ingressive aorist[33] or a dramatic aorist.[34] They then theorize that the seventh seal in 8:1 will begin the Day of the Lord with the initiation of His wrath either at His second coming (posttribulationism) or at a time shortly before His second coming (pre-wrath rapturism). These two systems depend heavily on identifying that aorist verb in one of those three ways rather than calling it a constative aorist, which summarizes events that have taken place in the past.

All three alternatives rule themselves out, however. The ingressive aorist would indicate that the wrath of God will begin with the sixth seal, contrary to the theories of both systems. The dramatic aorist would have the force of depicting an event that has happened just recently, that is, “the wrath has come just now.”[35] The dramatic aorist, according to Dana and Mantey, states “a present reality with the certitude of a past event.”[36] Either meaning would stifle both the posttribulational and the pre-wrath views. Besides this, usage of the dramatic aorist in the New Testament is relatively rare. The proleptic aorist would project the writer’s perspective to a time in the future from which he was looking back on the completed wrath. Nor is this the meaning that the two views under discussion are seeking. They say that Revelation 6:17 means that God’s wrath will begin with the seventh seal, not that the verse summarizes the whole “package” of wrath. Also proleptic aorists in Revelation characterize the words that originate with heavenly singers or voices, not words from other sources.[37]

A burning question persists for those who believe that God’s wrath will begin with the seventh seal: How can an unbelieving world, whose cries are recorded in 6:16–17, know that the wrath of God is about to fall on them at the time represented by the sixth seal? The day of God’s wrath will catch them by surprise, as a thief catches his victims at night (3:3; 16:15; cf. 1 Thess. 5:2–3). The wrath to which these earth dwellers refer must be something that has already begun, and now for the first time they recognize it while experiencing the afflictions of the sixth seal.

To sustain the position that the wrath of God does not begin until the seventh seal judgment, pre-wrath rapturists must adopt two key positions. First, they must dispense with the doctrine of Christ’s imminent return and be satisfied with substituting expectancy of Daniel’s seventieth week, but not the imminent return of Christ.[38] Second, they must define the Day of the Lord as God’s climactic judgment, excluding the period of the seal judgments.[39] These two distinctives are also held by posttribulationists.[40]

In response to the first tenet, Christ’s coming to inflict wrath is simultaneous with His coming to deliver the faithful (Rev. 3:10–11). In response to the second tenet Isaiah 2:17–21 and other Old Testament prophecies show that events of the first six seals are part of the Day of the Lord. Those events cannot coincide with the personal return of Christ in judgment because at that time people will not have opportunity to hide in caves. The cosmic upheavals of the sixth seal are preliminary to the cosmic upheavals Jesus spoke of as coming after the tribulation of those days (Matt. 24:29).

Dispensing with the Imminence of Christ’s Return

About imminence Gundry writes, “By common consent imminence means that so far as we know no predicted event will necessarily precede the coming of Christ.”[41] He continues, “The concept [of imminence] incorporates three essential elements: suddenness, unexpectedness or incalculability, and a possibility of occurrence at any moment…. Imminence would only raise the possibility of pretribulationism on a sliding scale with mid- and posttribulationism.”[42] Carson writes, “ ‘The imminent return of Christ’ … means Christ may return at any time. But the evangelical writers who use the word divide on whether ‘imminent’ in the sense of ‘at any time’ should be pressed to mean ‘at any second’ or something looser such as ‘at any period’ or ‘in any generation.’ ”[43]

Trying to understand what representatives of this “not-imminent-but-imminent” group mean by imminence or expectation is extremely difficult. It is almost like listening to a “doublespeak” contest. Carson says, “Yet the terms ‘imminent’ and ‘imminency’ retain theological usefulness if they focus attention on the eager expectancy of the Lord’s return characteristic of many New Testament passages, a return that could take place soon, i.e., within a fairly brief period of time, without specifying that the period must be one second or less.”[44] Erickson puts it this way: “It is one thing to say we do not know when an event will occur; it is another thing to say that we know of no times when it will not occur. If on a time scale we have points 1 to 1,000, we may know that Christ will not come at points 46 and 79, but not know at just what point He will come. The instructions about watchfulness do not mean that Christ may come at any time.”[45] Erickson’s reasoning is difficult to follow.

Witherington’s wording is different: “In short, one cannot conclude that 1 Thessalonians 4:15 clearly means that Paul thought the Lord would definitely return during his lifetime. Possible imminence had to be conjured with, but certain imminence is not affirmed here.”[46] From a practical standpoint “possible imminence” is tantamount to “certain imminence.” Witherington’s distinction, too, is hard to grasp. Beker clarifies Paul’s attitude more accurately:

“Thus delay of the parousia is not a theological concern for Paul. It is not an embarrassment for him; it does not compel him to shift the center of his attention from apocalyptic imminence to a form of ‘realized eschatology,’ that is, to a conviction of the full presence of the kingdom of God in our present history. It is of the essence of his faith in Christ that adjustments in his expectations can occur without a surrender of these expectations (1 Thess. 4:13–18; 1 Cor. 15:15–51; 2 Cor 5:1–10; Phil. 2:21–24). Indeed, the hope in God’s imminent rule through Christ remains the constant in his letters from beginning to end.”[47]

All these “nonimminence” scholars must mean “imminent within a limited period of time” because all would agree that events of the Tribulation period will be recognizable. If that is their meaning, then Christ’s warnings to watch for His coming are meaningless until that future period arrives. And even then, imminence cannot have its full impact because His coming will not be totally unexpected. It will have specified events to signal at least approximately, if not exactly, how far away it is.

To say that the New Testament teaching of imminence has become garbled in the systems of pre-wrath rapturism and posttribulationism is probably not an overstatement. According to different advocates it may mean at any moment within the last half of the seventieth week, at any moment after the seventieth week, at any time rather than any moment, at an unexpected moment with some exceptions, or possibly at any moment but not certainly at any moment.

Pre-wrath rapturists and posttribulationists have to talk around the plain meaning of Christ’s words in Matthew 24:36 (“of that day and hour no one knows”) just as preterists do. Concerning these words Gundry writes that those in the Tribulation will not be able to count seven years from the beginning or three and a half years from “the abomination of desolation,” because Jesus said the days will be shortened (24:21–22).[48] Gundry says that they will know the general time period, but not the exact time. According to his theory the watchfulness urged by Jesus applies only to saints in the Tribulation, who will be able to set an approximate date for the Lord’s return. That is the type of date-setting engaged in by the preterists, the type strongly criticized in recent years. To do justice to Jesus’ words in Matthew 24:36, one must acknowledge that He meant that no one would know even the general time period.

That is confirmed in His statement to the disciples in Acts 1:7: “It is not for you to know the times or the epochs [lit., ‘seasons’] which the Father has fixed by His own authority.” Gundry responds to this statement by claiming that Jesus was brushing aside the question of His disciples in order to emphasize to them that they should evangelize all peoples of the world (1:8) and not be thinking about the future kingdom.[49] That, however, attributes wrong interpersonal techniques to the Lord. Rather than dismissing their question by changing the subject, His words in 1:7 were another way of stating that no one knows the day or hour of His return.

Restricting the Day of the Lord

Gundry goes to great lengths to seek to demonstrate that the Day of the Lord does not include the Tribulation period.[50] Rosenthal and Van Kampen, pre-wrath rapturists, do the same.[51] Both systems restrict the day to a relatively brief period of God’s judgment against the world at the end of the Tribulation. To restrict the day in this manner and place it at the end of Daniel’s seventieth week is impossible, however. That definition and placement of the day would leave it with easily recognizable signs to precede it, thus removing it from the “complete-surprise” category. The day could not in that case come as a thief, as both Paul and Peter said it will (1 Thess. 5:2; 2 Pet. 3:10).

Furthermore Isaiah 2:19–21 shows that at least the sixth seal will be part of the Day of the Lord: “And men will go into caves of the rocks, and into holes of the ground before the terror of the Lord, and before the splendor of His majesty, when He arises to make the earth tremble. In that day [i.e., in the Day of the Lord; italics added] men will cast away to the moles and the bats their idols of silver and their idols of gold, which they made for themselves to worship, in order to go into the caverns of the rocks and the clefts of the cliffs, before the terror of the Lord and the splendor of His majesty, when He arises to make the earth tremble.” A good case exists for paralleling earlier seals with known Day-of-the-Lord events. So on these grounds too, it is improbable that the seventh seal will mark the beginning of the Day of the Lord.

Some writers have supposed that in 2 Thessalonians 2:1–3 Paul named recognizable events that will precede the Day of the Lord. In fact Gundry apparently looks to this passage for the title of his recent book, First the Antichrist: Why Christ Won’t Come before the Antichrist Does.[52] That view is oblivious to what the passage teaches, being based on the way most English translations have rendered 2 Thessalonians 2:3. Three features related to the verse deserve emphasis.

First, in the preceding verse (v. 2) the verb ἐνέστηκεν is present in meaning, even though its form is the perfect tense. It combines the prepositional prefix ἐν with the frequent verb ἵστημι, which in all of its New Testament usages in the perfect tense is instransitive and intensive in emphasizing existing results.[53] That the perfect tense of ἵστημι means “is present” is confirmed by its usage elsewhere (Rom. 8:38; 1 Cor. 3:22; 7:26; Gal. 1:4; Heb. 9:9).[54] Recognition of this fact indicates that the false information among the Thessalonians that Paul was combating was the teaching that “the Day of the Lord is present,” not that it “has already come” (RSV), that it “is at hand” (KJV), that it “is just at hand” (ASV), that it “has come” (NASB, NIV), or that it “had come” (NKJV). I have found only three versions that render the verb correctly. Darby renders it, “the day of the Lord is present”; Weymouth has “the Day of the Lord is now here”; and the New Revised Standard Version has “the Day of the Lord is already here.” These capture the intensive force of the perfect tense of ἐνέστηκεν.

The Day of the Lord includes a number of events, as evidenced from various passages of Scripture.[55] Because of the increased severity of persecution against the Thessalonians, some were trying to convince them that they were already in that period of woes, a part of the Day of the Lord, that will precede the personal return of the Messiah.

Second, a feature in verse 3 to be noted is the suppressed apodosis that must be supplied with the conditional clause begun by ἐὰν. Clearly the apodosis to be supplied comes from the end of verse 2. Translations that have missed the sense of the end of verse 2 supply the wrong apodosis: “that day shall not come” (KJV), “it will not be” (ASV), “it will not come” (NASB), “that day will not come” (NIV, RSV), “that Day will not come” (NKJV). But even the three versions that render verse 2 correctly supply the wrong apodosis: “that day cannot come” (Weymouth), “that day will not come” (NRSV), “it will not be” (Darby). Some versions indicate the absence of an explicit apodosis, but others do not.

To be faithful to the context, the understood apodosis should be “the Day of the Lord is not present.”[56] Complying with the context in this manner yields grammatical criteria for labeling the last half of verse 3 as a present general condition. Most clauses with ἐὰν and the subjunctive in the New Testament are more probable future conditions, but when the verb of the apodosis has the force of a present indicative, that makes it a present general condition. Such a construction often expresses a maxim,[57] a generic condition in the present time.[58] It expresses a principle or a proverb.[59] In such cases the protasis makes an assumption in the present time, and the apodosis gives a conclusion in the form of a general rule.[60] Therefore the sense of Paul’s statement in verse 3 is as follows: “If the apostasy does not come first and the man of lawlessness is not revealed, the Day of the Lord is not present. That is a principle you can count on.”

Third is the adverb πρῶτον (“first”) in the first half of the protasis of verse 3. Two meanings are possible. It can mean that the Day of the Lord is not present before the coming of the apostasy and the Revelation of the man of lawlessness, or it can mean that within the Day of the Lord the apostasy will come first, followed by the revelation of the man of lawlessness.[61] Stated another way, does the “first” compare to the apodosis or does it compare to the last half of the protasis?

A close parallel to this set of criteria occurs in John 7:51, where there is (a) a present action in the apodosis, (b) a compound protasis introduced by ἐὰν μὴ with the action of both verbs included in the action of the apodosis, and (c) πρῶτον in the former member of the compound protasis. John 7:51 reads thus: “Our Law does not judge a man, unless it first hears from him and knows what he is doing, does it?” The judicial process (present indicative of κρίνει) is not carried out unless two elements are present, namely, hearing from the defendant first and gaining a knowledge of what he is doing. Clearly in this instance, hearing from the defendant does not precede the judicial process; it is part of it. But it does precede a knowledge of what the man does. Here πρῶτον indicates that the first half of the compound protasis is prior to the last half.

Another verse relevant to this set of criteria is Mark 3:27: “But no one can enter the strong man’s house and plunder his property unless he first binds the strong man, and then he will plunder his house.” Here the apodosis is a present indicative statement followed by ἐὰν μὴ and a compound protasis. Because of τότε in the last half of the protasis, πρῶτον clearly evidences the priority of the first half of the protasis over the last half, namely, the binding of the strong man prior to the plundering of his house. This does not indicate that the whole protasis is prior to the apodosis, that is, that the binding of the strong man and the plundering of his house are prior to entering the house. In other words the verse indicates that the binding precedes the plundering, but not the entering, and the entering includes both the binding and the plundering.

Application of these data to 2 Thessalonians 2:3 results in the following translation: “The Day of the Lord is not present unless first in sequence within that day the apostasy comes, and following the apostasy’s beginning, the revealing of the man of lawlessness occurs.” Rather than the two events preceding the Day of the Lord, as has so often been suggested, these are conspicuous stages of that day after it has begun. By observing the fact that these events have not occurred, the Thessalonian readers could rest assured that the Day of the Lord had not yet begun.

This meaning of verse 3 frees Paul from the accusation of contradicting himself. In 1 Thessalonians 5:2 he wrote that the Day of the Lord will come as a thief. Yet, if that Day has precursors, as 2 Thessalonians 2:3 is often alleged to teach, it could hardly come as a thief. Thieves come without advance notice. Neither does the Day of the Lord have any prior signals before it arrives.[62] However, Paul does not contradict that meaning in 2 Thessalonians 2:3.

What Is Left of Imminence?

The doctrine of imminence has fallen on hard times in contemporary evangelicalism. Preterism has relegated imminence to a thirty-to-forty-year span in the first century A.D. Pre-wrath rapturism and posttribulationism have limited it to a period of seven years or less in the future.

The imminence of Christ’s return, including His coming to deliver the faithful and His coming to begin inflicting wrath on the rest of the world, is repeatedly taught in the Apocalypse as well as in other portions of the New Testament. No prophecy of Scripture remains to be fulfilled before either of these events occurs.

Believers need to be watching so as not to be lulled into lethargy by thinking some other predicted event will signal the approach of His return. It may come at any moment in any hour, day, week, month, year, decade, and century and should motivate the church to repentance, holy living, and zealous activity. Beker portrays the balance between anticipating Christ’s imminent coming and remaining busy in reaching the world with the gospel.

For how is it possible for Paul to be engaged in two seemingly opposite activities? How can he simultaneously long for the future reign of God and yet be occupied with missionary strategy for the long run? How do this impatience and this patience cohere in his life? … Passion and sobriety go hand in hand in Paul’s life because the necessity of the imminent end is directly related to its incalculability. This gives Paul the freedom to be committed simultaneously to the imminence of the end and to the contingencies of historical circumstance. He … is able to allow God the freedom to choose the moment of his final glorious theophany, whereas he strains in the meantime to move God’s world into the direction of its appointed future destiny.[63]

That is the attitude Scripture prescribes for all Christians.

Notes

1. The First Epistle of Clement 23; Epistle to Polycarp 1.3; Ignatius, Ephesians 11, shorter and longer versions; The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles 16; Pastor of Hermas, Vision Fourth, chapter 2; Irenaeus against Heresies 5.29.1; 5.35.1; Hippolytus, Treatise on Christ and Antichrist; Tertullian, Apology, Part First, chapter 21; Tertullian, On Repentance 1; Tertullian, The Shows, Part First, 3.30; Cyprian, “On the Unity of the Church” 27; The Treatises of Cyprian 7.2; 12.3.89; The Constitutions of the Holy Apostles 7.2.31; 7.2.32; Tertullian, On the Resurrection of the Flesh. See Thomas D. Lea, “A Survey of the Doctrine of the Return of Christ in the Ante-Nicene Fathers,” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 29 (June 1986): 170-72.
2. George E. Ladd, The Blessed Hope (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1956), 20.
3. Lea, “A Survey of the Doctrine of the Return of Christ in the Ante-Nicene Fathers,” 172.
4. John F. Walvoord, “A Review of The Blessed Hope, by George E. Ladd,” Bibliotheca Sacra 113 (July 1956): 291-92.
5. Millard J. Erickson, A Basic Guide to Eschatology: Making Sense of the Millennium (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1998), 75.
6. Ibid.
7. Robert L. Thomas, Revelation 1–7: An Exegetical Commentary (Chicago: Moody, 1992), 54–56. Gerald B. Stanton has cited some of the arguments used by opponents of imminence (“The Doctrine of Imminency: Is It Biblical?” in When the Trumpet Sounds, ed. Thomas Ice and Timothy Demy [Eugene, OR: Harvest House, 1995], 229–32). If the last book of the Bible teaches the imminence of Christ’s coming and the beginning of other end-time events, certain arguments against the New Testament’s teaching of imminence disappear. Opponents of imminence have cited the necessity of intervening events such as the death of Peter, the plan and content of Paul’s ministry, and the destruction of Jerusalem. These arguments are addressed by Robert G. Gromacki, “The Imminent Return of Jesus Christ,” Grace Theological Journal 6 (fall 1965): 14-16. However, all those lay in the past by the time the Book of Revelation was written and so were no obstacle to understanding the book’s emphasis on imminence.
8. James Moffatt, “The Revelation of St. John the Divine,” in The Expositor’s Greek Testament, ed. W. Robertson Nicoll (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1956), 335.
9. Thomas, Revelation 1–7, 82. Wallace notes that the futuristic present tense denotes either immediacy or certainty, depending on the context in which it appears (Daniel B. Wallace, Greek Grammar beyond the Basics [Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996], 535–36). In the context of the Apocalypse its obvious connotation is immediacy.
10. H. B. Swete, The Apocalypse of St. John (London: Macmillan, 1906), 55; Isbon T. Beckwith, The Apocalypse of John (New York: Macmillan, 1919), 490; Walter Scott, Exposition of the Revelation of Jesus Christ, 4th ed. (Grand Rapids: Kregel, n.d.), 112; see also Thomas, Revelation 1–7, 289–90, 309.
11. Matthew 24:42–25:13; Mark 13:32–37; Luke 12:39–40; 21:34–36; Romans 13:11–12; 1 Corinthians 1:4–7; 15:51–53; 16:22; 2 Corinthians 5:6–10; 1 Thessalonians 4:15; 5:2–10; 2 Peter 3:10.
12. See R. C. Sproul, The Last Days according to Jesus (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1998); see also Greg L. Bahnsen, “The Prima Facie Acceptability of Postmillennialism,” Journal of Christian Reconstruction 3 (winter 1976–77): 48-105.
13. Kenneth L. Gentry Jr., Before Jerusalem Fell: Dating the Book of Revelation (Tyler, TX: Institute for Christian Economics, 1989), 131.
14. Ibid., 133-45.
15. Sproul, The Last Days according to Jesus, 56–57.
16. Gentry, Before Jerusalem Fell, 131.
17. Gary DeMar, Last Days Madness: The Folly of Trying to Predict When Christ Will Return (Brentwood, TN: Wolgemuth & Hyatt, 1991), 100.
18. Keith A. Mathison, Postmillennialism: An Eschatology of Hope (Phillipsburg, NJ: P & R, 1999), 111–12.
19. See, for example, Sproul, The Last Days according to Jesus, 167–70.
20. See, for example, J. Stuart Russell, The Parousia: A Critical Inquiry into the New Testament Doctrine of Our Lord’s Second Coming (1887; reprint, Grand Rapids: Baker, 1983); and Max R. King, The Cross and the Parousia of Christ: The Two Dimensions of One Age-Changing Eschaton (Warren, OH: Writing and Research Ministry, 1987).
21. Sproul, The Last Days according to Jesus, 48.
22. Ibid., 41-48.
23. Gentry, Before Jerusalem Fell, 131 (italics his).
24. Sproul, The Last Days according to Jesus, 42.
25. Hal Lindsey with C. C. Carlson, The Late Great Planet Earth (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1970), 53–54.
26. Regarding these parables Charles L. Holman observes, “In the parables which exhort the disciples to watchfulness for the parousia (24:45–51; 25:1–13; 25:14–30) the idea of imminence is implicit; otherwise, why would the disciples need to watch for His coming?” (“The Idea of an Imminent Parousia in the Synoptic Gospels,” Studia Biblica et Theologica 3 [March 1973]: 17).
27. See Evald Lövestam, Jesus and ‘This Generation’: A New Testament Study (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1995), 81–87.
28. Robert Van Kampen, The Sign of Christ’s Coming and the End of the Age, rev. ed. (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 1992), 98–99, 185. For further discussion of the “pre-wrath” position, see Gerald B. Stanton, “A Review of The Pre-Wrath Rapture of the Church,” Bibliotheca Sacra 148 (January-March 1991): 90-111; and John A. McLean, “Another Look at Rosenthal’s ‘Pre-Wrath Rapture,’ ” Bibliotheca Sacra 148 (October-December 1991): 187-98.
29. Robert Gundry has recently reaffirmed his stance in First the Antichrist (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1997). That along with other works such as Millard J. Erickson, A Basic Guide to Eschatology:Making Sense of the Millennium (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1998) allows consideration of that view under the heading of “recent” also.
30. Compare Marvin Rosenthal, The Pre-Wrath Rapture of the Church (Nashville: Nelson, 1990), 115–61, with Robert H. Gundry, The Church and the Tribulation (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1973), 89–99.
31. Rosenthal, The Pre-Wrath Rapture of the Church, 166, 285; and Gundry, The Church and the Tribulation, 29–37.
32. Van Kampen, The Sign of Christ’s Coming, 274–78; and Gundry, The Church and the Tribulation, 29–43.
33. Van Kampen, The Sign of Christ’s Coming, 294–95; idem, The Rapture Question Answered (Grand Rapids: Revell, 1997), 153–54; and Gundry, The Church and the Tribulation, 76.
34. Gundry, The Church and the Tribulation, 76; and Rosenthal, The Pre-Wrath Rapture of the Church, 165.
35. Wallace says this about the dramatic aorist: “The aorist indicative can be used of an event that happened rather recently. Its force can usually be brought out with something like just now, as in just now I told you” (Greek Grammar beyond the Basics, 564).
36. H. E. Dana and Julius R. Mantey, A Manual Grammar of the Greek New Testament (N.p.: Macmillan, 1955), 198.
37. The proposed supporting usages of ἦλθεν as the dramatic aorist in Mark 14:41 and the proleptic aorist in Revelation 19:7 (Rosenthal, The Pre-Wrath Rapture, 165–66) come from different contexts. In Mark 14:41 the words “the hour has come” mean that the period of crucifixion, not the very moment of crucifixion, had already arrived. In Revelation 19:7 the aorist is proleptic as is often the case with heavenly singing in Revelation. Revelation 6:17 is not heavenly singing, however.
38. Van Kampen, The Sign of Christ’s Coming, 276–77.
39. Rosenthal, The Pre-Wrath Rapture of the Church, 117–34.
40. For example, Gundry, The Church and the Tribulation, 29–43, 89–99.
41. Ibid., 29 (italics his). A more accurate definition of imminence is, “By common consent imminence means that no predicted event will precede the coming of Christ.”
42. Ibid (italics added).
43. D. A. Carson, “Matthew,” in The Expositor’s Bible Commentary (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1984), 490.
44. Ibid. Carson’s reference to “one second or less” vividly recalls 1 Corinthians 15:52 in which Paul prophesied that Christ’s coming will be “in a moment [or ‘flash’], in the twinkling of an eye.”
45. Erickson, A Basic Guide to Eschatology, 181.
46. Ben Witherington III, “Transcending Imminence: The Gordian Knot of Pauline Eschatology,” Eschatology in the Bible and Theology (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1997), 174.
47. J. Christiaan Beker, Paul’s Apocalyptic Gospel (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1982), 49.
48. Gundry, First the Antichrist, 26–27.
49. Ibid., 32.
50. Gundry, The Church and the Tribulation, 89–93.
51. Rosenthal, The Pre-Wrath Rapture of the Church, 115–61; and Van Kampen, The Sign of Christ’s Coming, 348–52.
52. Gundry writes, “Paul says not only that ‘the Day of the Lord’ won’t arrive unless that evil figure ‘is revealed’ but also that ‘the rebellion’ which he will lead against all divinity except his own (claimed falsely, of course) ‘comes first’ (2 Thess. 2:1–4)” (First the Antichrist, 20). See also Erickson, Basic Guide to Eschatology, 175.
53. A. T. Robertson, A Grammar of the Greek New Testament in the Light of Historical Research (Nashville: Broadman, 1934), 881; G. Abbott-Smith, A Manual Greek Lexicon of the New Testament (Edinburgh: Clark, 1937), 219; James Hope Moulton, A Grammar of New Testament Greek, 3d ed., vol. 1: Prolegomena (Edinburgh: Clark, 1908), 147–48; and Wallace, Greek Grammar beyond the Basics, 579–80.
54. F. F. Bruce, 1 & 2 Thessalonians, Word Biblical Commentary (Dallas: Word, 1982), 165; and D. Michael Martin, 1, 2 Thessalonians, New American Commentary (Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 1995), 227–28.
55. Leon Morris, The First and Second Epistles to the Thessalonians, rev. Gordon D. Fee (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1992), 216.
56. Robert L. Thomas, “A Hermeneutical Ambiguity of Eschatology: The Analogy of Faith,” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 23 (March 1980): 51-52; cf. Gottlieb Lunemann, Critical and Exegetical Handbook to the Epistles of Paul to the Thessalonians, Meyer’s Commentary on the New Testament (Edinburgh: Clark, 1880), 208.
57. Robertson, A Grammar of the Greek New Testament in the Light of Historical Research, 1019.
58. Wallace, Greek Grammar beyond the Basics, 696–97.
59. Ibid., 698.
60. Hardy Hansen and Gerald M. Quinn, Greek: An Intensive Course (New York: Fordham University Press, 1992), 1:95.
61. Martin notes, “Its [i.e., the adverb πρῶτον] placement in the sentence slightly favors the understanding that the apostasy comes ‘first’ and then the lawless one is revealed,” and adds that the adverb could indicate that the arrival of apostasy and the revelation of the man of lawlessness will precede the Day of the Lord (1, 2 Thessalonians, 232).
62. To this effect Beker writes, “Paul emphasizes the unexpected, the suddenness and surprising character of the final theophany (1 Thess 5:2–10)” (Paul’s Apocalyptic Gospel, 48).
63. Ibid., 51-52.