Thank you for this excellent essay. If I dare say so, there is a solution to this dilemma -- but a solution that opens up a host of other challenges. Nonetheless, it is a solution.
There are two main issues at play: the timing of Jesus' second coming and the nature of Jesus second coming.
First: As you have pointed out, there can be no honest dispute about the timing: it was expected, indeed promised, within the lifetime of Jesus's contemporaries. Unless one is willing to distort the plain meaning of words like "soon" and "this generation, all of the time references point to a first-generation fulfillment of the promise of his return. The failure of that promise is a deal breaker. If Jesus didn't return then I believe the entirety of the Christian enterprise is bogus. Others have (easily) recognized this. A major pillar in Bertrand Russell's (in)famous essay, Why I An Not a Christian, is Jesus' failure to return. Russell is not wrong.
Second: A thoughtful person must interrogate the NATURE of Jesus' coming. A proper understanding of the nature of the Christ's return that is rooted in Old Testament prophesies is the interpretive key that unlocks the box of understanding while, admitted, opening up other challenges. Nonetheless, those challenge are more surmountable than an outright failure of Jesus' promise. If one believes the nature of Christ's return is literally "in the clouds" -- i.e., a visible physical return of the embodied Jesus -- the, obviously, he failed. But if the nature of Jesus' return is consistent with God's other "comings" in judgment recorded in the Old Testament prophets, notably against Egypt and Babylon, then the problem gets easier to solve. Was there some kind of catastrophic judgment against Jerusalem within the lifetime of the disciples, a judgement that left not one stone of the temple standing upon the other? Yes, of course. The Jewish Civil War and the Roman conquest of Jerusalem in the seven-ish years encompassing the period around AD70 fits the bill in every respect that I have been able to find in my decades of study on this topic. Read J. Stuart Russell's The Parousia, R.C. Sproul's The Last Days According to Jesus, and many other books and websites now easily available. Just google: full preterist. (In fairness, Sproul, at the end of his life, thisclose to full preterism. He backed away and adopted partial preterism: Jesus would still return at some point and there were a few prophecies yet to be fulfilled) because of conflict with the creeds, all of which, of course, point to a return in OUR future. I say: the Creeds aren't infallible. Reform them if necessary.
In sum, believing that Jesus' promised return was fulfilled in the events around the fall of Jerusalem definitvely solves the timing problem. I can easily accept the nature of the coming as being one of judgment foretold in typical Old Testament apocalyptic language. Not a big leap at all. The questions that arise are legion:
A. Where are we now on God's historical, linear timeline? Feels like there's no end point to history.
B. You mean the resurrection of the dead, which is inseparable from Christ's return, ALREADY HAPPENED? Yep. It did. Then what about us?
C. If this is true how did the church miss it for 2,000 years? I dunno. How did the Jews miss their Messiah's arrival in Palestine 2,000 year ago? Large numbers of people have been wrong about all sorts of things over extended periods of time. Entire nations, civilizations! So, sure, the church could have "missed" Jesus' return.
I could go on, but here's where I've landed. If Jesus didn't return in AD70 as promised, his failure negates the entire enterprise. I believe he did return. Thus we can trust what he is recorded to have said about other matters, although his ministry was so tightly focused on his generation of Jews that much that he and the Apostles said and wrote ("don't get married!") are not applicable to us.
Perhaps this will stimulate thinking on the part of your readers. Adopting this perspective on the NATURE and TIMING of Jesus' return has certainly been lifechanging for me but has won me few friends in fundamentalist or evangelical circles when/if they discover that I'm a heretic. Generally I say nothing because most folks' minds are made up.
Preterists (partial or full) believe Jesus did “come back” in judgement on Israel in 70 A.D. within the lifetimes of his hearers and would say that he was employing apocalyptic language in the Olivet Discourse. Partial preterists affirm a final return of Christ at the end of history, but nevertheless believe that A.D. 70 was “a return”.
These are interesting points and certainly have kept Christians wondering for two millennia, and may for two more. The more important question, and the one we avoid at all costs, is do you believe He is coming back? Do you believe He will judge the living and the dead? Do you believe it is the lot of men to die once, and then judgement? The answer to those questions may well determine your eternity.
As far as the "if the Resurrection already happened, (how) will we still be resurrected?" question:
If for God one day is a thousand years and a thousand years is one day, then God does not exist in linear time as we understand it. Or as Lewis put in the mouth of Aslan, "I call all times soon".
In which case the Resurrection happened, is still happening, and it will happen. It's both never and always happening because it's beyond time.
At what point in the linear timeline anyone dies would be irrelevant if that is the case.
I'm not a preterist, but I find it helpful to bring the paradox front and center and let it be. All has been fulfilled, and none of if has. Already-but-not-yet. Doesn't make it intellectually easier, but helps me situate myself.
Maybe his mistake was the same God made in the garden. He trusted us too much. God has a history of doing that with us. He might have thought the proper changes would come about sooner. Changes didn’t come as he expected, so 70 AD happened and the exile grew into what it is now.
For me the main point about Jesus is that he is the one who gives you the Holy Spirit and connects you to the Living God. He is introduced in each of the gospels as the one who gives the Holy Spirit. His incarnation, life on earth, crucifixion, resurrection and ascension was to set that all up and that at death we go to him and the Father as Stephen the martyr did in Acts. Another assumption of Paul’s was the concrete inward bodily tangibility of the Holy Spirit freely available through Jesus and that assumption runs all through the New Testament. And , thank you, Jesus, that has been what I know after receiving you on my knees in that eastern meditation place I lived in decades ago. My eyes flew open in shock at the sudden closeness of God as I prayed. The wonderful, loving Isness of God as gift!
Wow, it's like you read my mind or something. This has actually been a really difficult doubt for me to overcome recently, on my path to conversion to Christ. The hardest one in fact, especially since the Orthodox Study Bible outright admits over and over that Paul thinks the end is coming soon.
I have taken comfort in the fact that Christ Himself said that no man shall know the hour, which Lewis quoted up there. And that he often spoke in parables. But yeah, the fact that the early church was convinced the apocalypse was right around the corner is pretty tough.
Orthodoxy often argues that salvation actually has come, that the apocalypse did happen with the resurrection, and the entire character of creation was changed with the Incarnation. I don't know enough to know whether this is true of all Orthodoxy, but it's one I've heard repeated a couple of times. I should probably look into it.
Anyway, I'm right there with you on struggling with this one brother. At this point though, as you admit, I'm too far in and I believe too much in Christ to get out now. I'll be totally honest. And I'm sick of the legalistic, rational, logical worldview anyway. Trying to build any serious life or moral practice without some inconsistencies is building on sand. Just look at the utilitarians.
EDIT: Talked to some Orthodox folks, this is the reply I got. Curious if you have encountered this before Yoshi:
"This question seems to have some heavy baptist overtones which we find alot of in our culture. Especially the idea of a “coming apocalypse”. The word apocalypse simply means to reveal. The Orthodox church as far as I know does not hold to the belief that there will be some world ending event but instead interprets texts like the book of Revelation as an explanation of events that have happened, are happening and will continue to happen until Christ returns on the last day. This is why Saint John sent this letter to all of the churches urgently, it would not make sense to send them a letter during a time of Christian persecution about some end times events that would happen thousands of years in the future."
2,000 years isn't soon to a creature who lives for only 100 at the outside, fair enough. But it's soon enough for the species as a whole, and very soon indeed to an eternal God who measures both a day and a thousand years alike. Overthinking is a good way to find oneself leaning to one's own understanding, rather than trusting in the Lord with all one's heart. The world will certainly call that naïf, but I've never been much for what the world thinks of eternal matters and mysteries, or even of what it considers naïf. Just my two cents.
Reminds me of the Talking Heads album Stop Making Sense - if Christianity “made sense” I wouldn’t be inclined to believe it! It only has to make more sense than the madness humans create for ourselves and it certainly meets that test easily.
Thanks for not "wimping out" and taking it head on. I feel like when I read Jesus' words of the future I see things playing out in our own lifetime. But the Apostles clearly believed that was true as well. Perhaps its a cyclical thing like so many events throughout history. I've had dreams of end times scenarios, but maybe that's all from too much Left Behind/pop-apocalyptic talk. So many people now seem to wish it were the end. You've written about that before. And then there is the wild theory that maybe most of history/modern history is a lie and we have no idea how much time could have really passed. Either way there's no easy answer, just moving the goal posts perhaps.
Cool, it is not a sin to be inaccurate making your best take on reality with limited knowledge and ignorance so the Lamb of God displays his limited humanity and retains his sinlessness at the same time. Thank you C. S. Lewis for threading that needle and thank you for your own take on it. Remember when the woman with the issue of blood touched Jesus and was healed and Jesus asked who had touched him for he felt healing power leave him.
Thank you for this excellent essay. If I dare say so, there is a solution to this dilemma -- but a solution that opens up a host of other challenges. Nonetheless, it is a solution.
There are two main issues at play: the timing of Jesus' second coming and the nature of Jesus second coming.
First: As you have pointed out, there can be no honest dispute about the timing: it was expected, indeed promised, within the lifetime of Jesus's contemporaries. Unless one is willing to distort the plain meaning of words like "soon" and "this generation, all of the time references point to a first-generation fulfillment of the promise of his return. The failure of that promise is a deal breaker. If Jesus didn't return then I believe the entirety of the Christian enterprise is bogus. Others have (easily) recognized this. A major pillar in Bertrand Russell's (in)famous essay, Why I An Not a Christian, is Jesus' failure to return. Russell is not wrong.
Second: A thoughtful person must interrogate the NATURE of Jesus' coming. A proper understanding of the nature of the Christ's return that is rooted in Old Testament prophesies is the interpretive key that unlocks the box of understanding while, admitted, opening up other challenges. Nonetheless, those challenge are more surmountable than an outright failure of Jesus' promise. If one believes the nature of Christ's return is literally "in the clouds" -- i.e., a visible physical return of the embodied Jesus -- the, obviously, he failed. But if the nature of Jesus' return is consistent with God's other "comings" in judgment recorded in the Old Testament prophets, notably against Egypt and Babylon, then the problem gets easier to solve. Was there some kind of catastrophic judgment against Jerusalem within the lifetime of the disciples, a judgement that left not one stone of the temple standing upon the other? Yes, of course. The Jewish Civil War and the Roman conquest of Jerusalem in the seven-ish years encompassing the period around AD70 fits the bill in every respect that I have been able to find in my decades of study on this topic. Read J. Stuart Russell's The Parousia, R.C. Sproul's The Last Days According to Jesus, and many other books and websites now easily available. Just google: full preterist. (In fairness, Sproul, at the end of his life, thisclose to full preterism. He backed away and adopted partial preterism: Jesus would still return at some point and there were a few prophecies yet to be fulfilled) because of conflict with the creeds, all of which, of course, point to a return in OUR future. I say: the Creeds aren't infallible. Reform them if necessary.
In sum, believing that Jesus' promised return was fulfilled in the events around the fall of Jerusalem definitvely solves the timing problem. I can easily accept the nature of the coming as being one of judgment foretold in typical Old Testament apocalyptic language. Not a big leap at all. The questions that arise are legion:
A. Where are we now on God's historical, linear timeline? Feels like there's no end point to history.
B. You mean the resurrection of the dead, which is inseparable from Christ's return, ALREADY HAPPENED? Yep. It did. Then what about us?
C. If this is true how did the church miss it for 2,000 years? I dunno. How did the Jews miss their Messiah's arrival in Palestine 2,000 year ago? Large numbers of people have been wrong about all sorts of things over extended periods of time. Entire nations, civilizations! So, sure, the church could have "missed" Jesus' return.
I could go on, but here's where I've landed. If Jesus didn't return in AD70 as promised, his failure negates the entire enterprise. I believe he did return. Thus we can trust what he is recorded to have said about other matters, although his ministry was so tightly focused on his generation of Jews that much that he and the Apostles said and wrote ("don't get married!") are not applicable to us.
Perhaps this will stimulate thinking on the part of your readers. Adopting this perspective on the NATURE and TIMING of Jesus' return has certainly been lifechanging for me but has won me few friends in fundamentalist or evangelical circles when/if they discover that I'm a heretic. Generally I say nothing because most folks' minds are made up.
Preterists (partial or full) believe Jesus did “come back” in judgement on Israel in 70 A.D. within the lifetimes of his hearers and would say that he was employing apocalyptic language in the Olivet Discourse. Partial preterists affirm a final return of Christ at the end of history, but nevertheless believe that A.D. 70 was “a return”.
These are interesting points and certainly have kept Christians wondering for two millennia, and may for two more. The more important question, and the one we avoid at all costs, is do you believe He is coming back? Do you believe He will judge the living and the dead? Do you believe it is the lot of men to die once, and then judgement? The answer to those questions may well determine your eternity.
As someone reading the Bible for the first time, might I say I really enjoy your work for how elucidating it is.
Thanks for writing this. Wish I could contribute to the discourse more than that, but I’m just happy to learn.
As far as the "if the Resurrection already happened, (how) will we still be resurrected?" question:
If for God one day is a thousand years and a thousand years is one day, then God does not exist in linear time as we understand it. Or as Lewis put in the mouth of Aslan, "I call all times soon".
In which case the Resurrection happened, is still happening, and it will happen. It's both never and always happening because it's beyond time.
At what point in the linear timeline anyone dies would be irrelevant if that is the case.
I'm not a preterist, but I find it helpful to bring the paradox front and center and let it be. All has been fulfilled, and none of if has. Already-but-not-yet. Doesn't make it intellectually easier, but helps me situate myself.
Maybe his mistake was the same God made in the garden. He trusted us too much. God has a history of doing that with us. He might have thought the proper changes would come about sooner. Changes didn’t come as he expected, so 70 AD happened and the exile grew into what it is now.
For me the main point about Jesus is that he is the one who gives you the Holy Spirit and connects you to the Living God. He is introduced in each of the gospels as the one who gives the Holy Spirit. His incarnation, life on earth, crucifixion, resurrection and ascension was to set that all up and that at death we go to him and the Father as Stephen the martyr did in Acts. Another assumption of Paul’s was the concrete inward bodily tangibility of the Holy Spirit freely available through Jesus and that assumption runs all through the New Testament. And , thank you, Jesus, that has been what I know after receiving you on my knees in that eastern meditation place I lived in decades ago. My eyes flew open in shock at the sudden closeness of God as I prayed. The wonderful, loving Isness of God as gift!
Wow, it's like you read my mind or something. This has actually been a really difficult doubt for me to overcome recently, on my path to conversion to Christ. The hardest one in fact, especially since the Orthodox Study Bible outright admits over and over that Paul thinks the end is coming soon.
I have taken comfort in the fact that Christ Himself said that no man shall know the hour, which Lewis quoted up there. And that he often spoke in parables. But yeah, the fact that the early church was convinced the apocalypse was right around the corner is pretty tough.
Orthodoxy often argues that salvation actually has come, that the apocalypse did happen with the resurrection, and the entire character of creation was changed with the Incarnation. I don't know enough to know whether this is true of all Orthodoxy, but it's one I've heard repeated a couple of times. I should probably look into it.
Anyway, I'm right there with you on struggling with this one brother. At this point though, as you admit, I'm too far in and I believe too much in Christ to get out now. I'll be totally honest. And I'm sick of the legalistic, rational, logical worldview anyway. Trying to build any serious life or moral practice without some inconsistencies is building on sand. Just look at the utilitarians.
EDIT: Talked to some Orthodox folks, this is the reply I got. Curious if you have encountered this before Yoshi:
"This question seems to have some heavy baptist overtones which we find alot of in our culture. Especially the idea of a “coming apocalypse”. The word apocalypse simply means to reveal. The Orthodox church as far as I know does not hold to the belief that there will be some world ending event but instead interprets texts like the book of Revelation as an explanation of events that have happened, are happening and will continue to happen until Christ returns on the last day. This is why Saint John sent this letter to all of the churches urgently, it would not make sense to send them a letter during a time of Christian persecution about some end times events that would happen thousands of years in the future."
2,000 years isn't soon to a creature who lives for only 100 at the outside, fair enough. But it's soon enough for the species as a whole, and very soon indeed to an eternal God who measures both a day and a thousand years alike. Overthinking is a good way to find oneself leaning to one's own understanding, rather than trusting in the Lord with all one's heart. The world will certainly call that naïf, but I've never been much for what the world thinks of eternal matters and mysteries, or even of what it considers naïf. Just my two cents.
Yes, and Matt 28:20 . . .
Reminds me of the Talking Heads album Stop Making Sense - if Christianity “made sense” I wouldn’t be inclined to believe it! It only has to make more sense than the madness humans create for ourselves and it certainly meets that test easily.
Thanks for not "wimping out" and taking it head on. I feel like when I read Jesus' words of the future I see things playing out in our own lifetime. But the Apostles clearly believed that was true as well. Perhaps its a cyclical thing like so many events throughout history. I've had dreams of end times scenarios, but maybe that's all from too much Left Behind/pop-apocalyptic talk. So many people now seem to wish it were the end. You've written about that before. And then there is the wild theory that maybe most of history/modern history is a lie and we have no idea how much time could have really passed. Either way there's no easy answer, just moving the goal posts perhaps.
Cool, it is not a sin to be inaccurate making your best take on reality with limited knowledge and ignorance so the Lamb of God displays his limited humanity and retains his sinlessness at the same time. Thank you C. S. Lewis for threading that needle and thank you for your own take on it. Remember when the woman with the issue of blood touched Jesus and was healed and Jesus asked who had touched him for he felt healing power leave him.