How Did We Get Here and Where Are We Going?
Historical Heroes Who Longed for Christ’s Appearing
By Tim Moore
I often think about the people who lived in ages past and wonder what they understood about their place in the flow of His story.
For those who lived between the Testaments, it meant experiencing a famine of the Word. And yet, there were individuals who remained confident that God would remember His ancient promises and fulfill them in His good time.
Similarly, following the fervor of the Apostles and the evangelistic urgency of the Church Fathers, the Church has waited almost 2,000 years for the promise of the Rapture and Jesus’ subsequent return. As the years turned into decades and then centuries, some Christians began to wonder (and wander). Instead of asking, “How long, O Lord?” they began to doubt, either actively or passively, the promise of His coming—just as Peter warned would happen (2 Peter 3:3-4).
But there has always been a faithful remnant who remained excited about Jesus’ promise and loved His appearing. Like Paul, they were confident that a crown of righteousness was laid up for them (2 Timothy 4:8).
Faith of the Fathers
There can be no doubt that the Apostles expected Jesus to come again. Prior even to His crucifixion, death, and resurrection, they were asking, “What will be the sign of Your coming?” (Matthew 24:3). They didn’t even understand the nature of His “going,” but they knew already that He would be coming again.
The Early Church Fathers shared that anticipation. The earliest of them were disciples of the original Apostles. For example, Polycarp and Ignatius followed after John, and Irenaeus was taught by Polycarp. There were not many degrees of separation between many Early Church leaders and the original Apostles. And, while they had to fight against threats of heresy in the Church, they also shared an expectation that Jesus would come again—imminently and suddenly.
Down through what we refer to as the Dark Ages, unwavering faith was handed down from one generation to another, kept alive by the breath of the Holy Spirit. As a glowing ember holds heat, that core faith was ready to burst into flame—and did so with the advent of the Reformation.
Although Protestants during the Reformation era were denounced as heretics for daring to read the Bible for themselves (and even, shockingly, to translate it into different languages so that common people could access God’s Word), the plain reading of what God had chosen to reveal stoked the understanding that human history would culminate in the return of Jesus—first for His Church and then in glory to reign on the earth for 1,000 years.
The Catholic Church had long since ascribed to a symbolic, Amillennial interpretation. But at the turn of the 17th Century, a Jesuit by the name of Luis de Alcázar offered an alternate viewpoint now called Preterism. According to de Alcázar and vocal proponents of Preterism still today, every prophecy regarding the return of Christ was fulfilled in AD 70 when Jerusalem was sacked by the Romans. Makes you wonder what we’re still doing here today and why wickedness continues to multiply on the Earth.
Freedom in Christ
Coming as a direct repudiation of Catholic resistance to widespread Bible reading and comprehension, a new wave of understanding was unleashed when people began to read God’s Word for themselves—and accept a plain-sense understanding of what He revealed through prophecy.
The leading men of the Enlightenment almost universally credited their blossoming knowledge to God’s Word and their belief that He revealed Himself and certain mysteries in order that they might be understood.
Throughout the Middle Ages, leading scholars and what are now categorized as scientists found both inspiration and understanding in the Word of God. And many of them lived expectantly, looking for Jesus to return. For example, Isaac Newton is revered as a great mathematician, physicist, and scholar, but he was wholly committed to the study of Christian theology—including the timing of Christ’s First and Second Advents.
He wisely recognized that God gave us Bible prophecy “not to gratify men’s curiosities by enabling them to foreknow [dates and times], but that after they were fulfilled they might be interpreted by the event, and His own Providence… be then manifested thereby to the world.” Newton’s humility as a scientist is evident in a statement that is just as applicable to students of Bible prophecy. Paraphrasing Contemporary poet George Herbert, he wrote to a colleague, “If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.”
We too have an advantage over those who have come before us—hindsight and freedom. As faithful Christians sought to study God’s Word and worship Him in spirit and truth, many were drawn to the New World, where they could be free from Catholic oppression and state church bureaucracy. There is a reason why the first Amendment to the US Constitution addresses religious liberty. Having seen the potential for serving God and man when given freedom in Christ, America’s founders were not about to return to bondage and darkness.
Burgeoning Prophetic Expectation
By the 1800s, followers of Christ on both sides of the Atlantic had redeveloped a biblical system of eschatology. I say “redeveloped” because the Early Church’s anticipation of Jesus’ promised bodily return had been largely set aside by the official Church. But the Lord raised up men like John Nelson Darby and William Blackstone.
Darby is considered the modern father of “dispensationalism”—the belief that God has interacted with mankind differently in different periods (or dispensations) of human history. His systematic and literal interpretation of Bible prophecy also led him to strongly advocate for a Pretribulation Rapture, that will eventually be followed by Jesus’ glorious Second Coming and Millennial reign.
Other men built on that plainsense reading of God’s Word to recognize that God’s promises to hereditary Israel are still “Yes, and Amen”—as opposed to Catholic teaching that the Jews have been set aside. William Blackstone, who once served with the Red Cross at Ulysses S. Grant’s army headquarters, became a leading Christian Zionist. His insistent support for the reestablishment of a Jewish nation in Palestine (as the Land of Israel was called in the late 1800s) was exceeded only by his consistent preaching that Jesus would rapture the Church before returning to reign for 1,000 years.
Blackstone was so persuasive that he convinced John D. Rockefeller, J.P. Morgan, senators, congressmen, newspaper editors, and even the Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court to sign his petition advocating for the ancient land of Israel to be given back to the Jewish people. His fervor eventually sparked a passion in Theodor Herzl, who is recognized as the Jewish founder of Zionism.
Blackstone’s fervor was also passed along to C.I. Scofield, a theologian, pastor, and writer who had once served with the Confederate Army before he crossed Civil War battle lines in Kentucky to take the Union allegiance oath. Serving alongside Dwight L. Moody, who himself had been encouraged by Charles Spurgeon, C.I. Scofield systemized a version of dispensationalism that featured an anticipation of a Pretribulational Rapture and literal millennial reign of Jesus Christ. That view gained widespread appreciation through his annotated study Bible.
Like the disciples who followed after the first Apostles, these men and countless others who are known only to God, passed along a clear and Christ-honoring understanding of His Word regarding Jesus’ promise to return. None of them, being mere men—were infallible in all their understanding. But they were faithful to take God at His Word, believing that both “the faith which was once for all handed down to the saints” (Jude 1:3) and “the things revealed to us” (Deuteronomy 29:29) not only belong to us forever, they should be believed, cherished, and shared.
Where Are We in God’s Prophetic Timeline?
I’ve offered a very broad overview of some of the individuals who have looked forward to Jesus’ return throughout the Church Age. For almost 20 centuries, the Holy Spirit has ensured that God’s powerful and effective Word—including His prophetic Word—will not return void (Isaiah 55:8-11).
Obviously, every jot and tittle of Scripture will be completely and manifestly fulfilled, because it is God’s will. But God’s will will come to pass, whether He reveals it to us in advance or not. So there must be a reason God has chosen to reveal His Will and His designs for the future to us.
As we sit watching the signs of the times converge all around us and prophetic happenings accelerate day by day, we should thank God that we have the privilege to live in such a time as this. Prophets of old and faithful Christians throughout the Church Age longed to witness what is transpiring before our eyes. Yet, instead of yearning, many professing followers of Christ are yawning. Lulled to sleep by the misconception that “all continues just as it was from the beginning of creation,” (2 Peter 3:4), they become the very mockers Peter warned would arise in the Last Days.
Whether you or I realize it or not, time is speeding toward the terminus God has ordained. All the signs indicate that could be very soon. If He tarries, it is only because He doesn’t wish that any would perish, but would come to repentance and salvation in Jesus Christ (2 Peter 3:9).
Either way, our mission is clear and urgent: warn every person we can to flee from the wrath to come and into the loving arms of our Savior. We can encourage one another, and all the more as we see the day drawing near, confident that He who called us—and revealed His prophetic Word to us—is faithful. And He is coming soon!
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