The Origins of the Modern End-Times View - J. Nagy

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Many Christians today believe that we are living in the final days of the world, or in the ‘end times’. Pastors, radio hosts, and authors everywhere teach that as we approach the return of Jesus, the moral condition of the world must necessarily decline. In the final days, we are told, the Jews will build a third temple in Jerusalem. There will be a horrific seven-year tribulation period that will bring wars, famine, pestilence and all kinds of plagues upon mankind. Millions all over the world will die during the tribulation, particularly those who refuse the mark of the beast. Russia will break a treaty with Israel and send its armies to surround Jerusalem in preparation for the final battle. Many of you find solace in your belief that you will be taken out of this world in a secret rapture prior to the tribulation, but woe to those who are ‘left behind’.

Chances are that you believe most or all of these statements, though if asked, you could not find any specific verses in the Bible to support any of these beliefs. You are also likely unaware of the origins of these beliefs, and do not know whether or not the Church has historically held to these views.

Though it might not be obvious to you, the entirety of the modern end-times system has its foundation in an artificial distinction between the nation of Israel and the Church. This view was promoted in the 1830’s by a man named John Nelson Darby, a pastor in England, who began preaching about the imminent return of Jesus. Darby was an expositor of Old Testament prophecy, and believed that Christ would return in his day because of the moral deterioration of society. The biblical framework that emerged from his views is called dispensationalism, and it has gradually replaced other views about the end of the world that were previously held by the Church as early as the first and second centuries. An outline of dispensationalism goes something like this:

• God established covenants with Israel that are eternal and unconditional.
• Israel repeatedly disobeyed God and rejected their Messiah.
• God established the Church in response to Israel’s disobedience.
• God is going to rapture the Church prior to the restoration of Israel.
• Matthew 24 and the book of Revelation describe the ‘great tribulation’.

Not one of these statements is true.

The main premise of the end-times system that arises from dispensationalism is that God made promises to Israel that are eternal and unconditional, that the Jewish nation rejected their Messiah, that God temporarily raised up the Church in response to this rejection, and that God is obligated to restore the nation of Israel in fulfillment of his promises. We will look at these statements one by one and see to see if they are supported by scripture.

God established his covenant with Abraham in Genesis 15:18-21. This covenant declares that Abraham would inherit an allotted land and that his descendants would be as numerous as the stars in Heaven. The covenant was reiterated to Abraham’s son, Isaac, in Genesis 26:3-4. Later, God confirmed the covenant to Isaac’s son, Jacob, in Genesis 23:13-14, declaring that Jacob’s offspring would receive the promised land and that his offspring would be like the dust of the Earth. Since Jacob is the father of the nation of Israel, all of the promises of the Abrahamic Covenant are passed on to the Jewish nation. Proponents of the end times argue that the nation of Israel must be restored because these promises are both eternal and unconditional.

But is the covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob unconditional? In Genesis 18:16-19, the Lord is about to judge Sodom for the sins of that nation. God declares that He will make known to Abraham what is about to happen. This revealing of impending judgement is meant to be an example to Abraham of the wrath that awaits a nation that walks in utter disobedience. The Lord declares in verse 19 that Abraham is to direct his children in obedience so that they would receive the promises He made to Abraham. From the passage, we see that the promises made to Abraham are not unconditional. They are conditional upon obedience.

Later under the Leviticus Law, we see that the promise of the land continued to be conditional upon obedience. If the nation was disobedient, they would forfeit their land and they themselves would be scattered among the nations (Leviticus 26:32-33). In fact, Israel was driven from their land at least twice in Jewish history. The promise of the land was indeed conditional upon obedience.

Doesn’t the promise still obligate God to save all of Abraham's descendants? We must first ask what it means to be a descendant of Abraham. Jesus declared that many would come from the east and the west who would recline at the table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, while the sons of the kingdom would be thrown into darkness (Matthew 8:11-12). Clearly, one is not saved on the basis of one’s ancestry. The apostle Paul argues that not all who are offspring of Abraham belong to Abraham (Romans 9:6-8), only those who are of the promise. Paul uses the illustration of the olive tree in Romans 17:20. The branches represent all who belong to the kingdom of God. Some of the original branches were broken off so that a number of Gentiles could be grafted in. Nowhere does the Bible suggest that there are two separate olive trees representing Israel and the Church. There is a single olive tree for Jews and Gentiles as shown in Figure 1. Jesus is the vine and all who are in Christ are the branches (John 15:5).

Aren’t there unfulfilled promises concerning the modern nation of Israel? Many argue that not all of the promises made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob have been fulfilled. However, we are told that all of the good promises that God made to Israel came to pass; not one had failed (Joshua 21:45). Furthermore, in Christ, these promises move from the physical to the spiritual. For example, the Abrahamic Covenant declared that Israel would receive an allotted land (Genesis 15:18). But in Christ, there is a heavenly home that is eternal (John 14:2). The law was given to the Jewish people at Mount Sinai (Exodus 20-23). In Christ, the law is written upon our hearts (Jeremiah 31:33-34). The law required burnt offerings for the forgiveness of sins (Leviticus 1:1-17). In Christ, there is no longer a need for animal sacrifice (Hebrews 10:4,14). It should be understood that all of the covenants made with Israel have been perfectly fulfilled in Christ.

Many proponents of the modern end-times system argue that the Church does not inherit the blessings promised to Israel. They argue that to even suggest this is anti-Semitic. They apply a straw-man argument they call replacement theology. These proponents claim, falsely, that those who understand the Church to be a continuation of faithful Israel mean that the Church has replaced Israel. This is a false accusation. The correct view is one that understands that the Church has not replaced Israel. Rather, the Church is a natural continuation of the faithful Jews who accepted Jesus as Messiah.

Many who argue that the Jews rejected Christ also contend that God established the Church as a temporary institution to deal with the problem of Israel’s disobedience. They believe that God has, for a time, turned away from the nation of Israel and now uses the Church as a temporary means through which the Word of God is to go out to all nations. When the Church Age comes to an end, they believe that God will again turn his attention to the nation of Israel.

This view is incorrect. Rather, the Church is a natural continuation of the faithful remnant of Israel. Many Jews who lived prior to Christ understood the prophecies concerning the Messiah and faithfully awaited his coming. For example, Luke records that a righteous man by the name of Simeon had been awaiting the “consolation of Israel” (Luke 2:25-26). He blessed God because he was able to see Jesus before he died. Jews like Simeon loved the Messiah because they first loved God.

Furthermore, there were communities of Jewish Christians all over the Roman world in the first century. For a time, these Christians met in the synagogues. The division between Christian and non-Christian Jews grew after the first Roman-Jewish war, which resulted in the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70. After the war, Jewish Christians began to be thrown out of the synagogues. This division worsened following the second Roman-Jewish war, which ended in AD 136. Following that war, ethnic Jews were not even permitted to live in Israel, and so the leadership of the Jerusalem church fell to a line of Gentiles. More and more Christian Jews were abandoning their Jewish roots.

So the faithful of Israel and the Church are not distinct. But aren’t all unsaved Jews still awaiting their redemption when the nation is restored? With regard to salvation, the Bible supports only two classes of people: those who have accepted Christ and those who have not. There is not a subclass for Jews who have rejected Jesus but who will be saved in the end times on the basis of ethnicity. Those who promote this teaching believe that there are two separate timelines: one for the Jews and another for the Church.

Figure 2 captures the modern end-times system. Proponents of this system argue that the Church Age began when the Jews rejected Christ. In their view, the age of the Mosaic Law was halted when the Jews fell into disobedience, and so there is a gap in the timeline for the Jews that is temporarily filled in by the Church. They believe that God will rapture the Christians at the conclusion of the Church Age and then all ethnic Jews will be drawn to Christ in the Millennium. In order for this to happen, there must first be a seven-year tribulation period that is meant to turn the hearts of the Jews to Christ.

Figure 3 shows how man of every age has always been saved through faith, by trusting that God is faithful to bring salvation to those who trust and obey Him. This was true when Abel offered his sacrifices to God, which were acceptable. It was true when Israel was living under the Mosaic Law. And it was true when John the Baptist came preaching about the kingdom of Heaven. The Jews of the faithful remnant of Israel were living by faith right up until the time of Jesus. And when Jesus began his ministry, they continued to be justified by grace through faith. Their obedience and faith did not initiate a separate timeline of redemption. They loved and followed Jesus because they first loved God. Later, Gentiles were grafted into the olive tree, as stated earlier. All who are in Christ are part of a single timeline whether Jew or Gentile.

You have probably been taught that God has ordained a horrific tribulation that will cause calamity upon the whole Earth, according to the Daniel 9:25-27. You believe that this tribulation will last seven years and that the moral condition of the world will get worse and worse leading up to the tribulation. Supposedly, there will be a secret rapture of the Church immediately prior to the tribulation. Christians today who accept this modern view are likely unaware of its origins or that the early Church did not hold this view. But how did this view become an integral part of modern Church doctrine?

In the 1830’s, a man by the name of John Nelson Darby would begin preaching about the imminent return of Jesus. He and many like-minded men believed that the moral degeneracy of his day was fulfillment of Bible prophecy and so Christ must soon return. Darby was pastor of a church known as the Plymouth Brethren, so named for the town of Plymouth, England. He wrote huge volumes of Bible commentary, much of that emphasizing eschatology, or the doctrine of the end of the world. Darby devised a new interpretive analysis of the Bible that regarded prophecy as progressive. That is, as we approach the end times, God will give certain men insight to help them better understand prophecy.

Darby is considered to be the father of dispensationalism, an interpretive framework that separates the Bible into different ages, as shown in Figure 2. Like dispensationalists today, Darby drew distinctions between the Church and Israel, such as rejecting that the Church receives the blessings of Israel. Darby emphasized futurism, the belief that many of the prophecies of the Old Testament have yet to be fulfilled. Darby and others believed that Israel would have to go through a tribulation period before Jesus would restore the nation of Israel. He believed that Daniel 9:27 described a future seven-year tribulation, and that Jesus would return at the conclusion of this great tribulation.

But his analysis had a problem. Darby could find no references to the Church as going through the tribulation. So if Jesus returns after the tribulation, but the Church does not go through the tribulation, then it must follow that the Church is not on the earth at the time of the second coming. So what must be done with the Church? The doctrine of the pre-tribulation rapture was created to solve this problem. Darby introduced the doctrine that the Church would be removed prior to the tribulation. This view was initially referred to as the secret rapture. Today, countless Christians believe that there will be a secret rapture of the Church prior to a great tribulation and are not even aware that this view did not exist as a serious doctrine prior to 1830.

Similarly, most are likely not aware that many modern end-times beliefs were not held by members of the early Church. For example, the Church historian Eusebius believed that the Abomination of Desolation spoken by the prophets occurred during the Roman-Jewish war.[1] He also believed that the prophecies in Matthew 24 were fulfilled during the Roman-Jewish war.[2] The Church father Irenaeus understood the apocalypse to have occurred during the “empire which now rules”, a reference to the ancient Roman Empire.[3]

Tragically, the rapture and the events surrounding it have become a source of fear and confusion for Christians since the introduction of the modern view. But Christians should not fear the rapture. The rapture is an event marking the second coming of Christ when he returns for his bride, which is the Church, for the great wedding feast of Revelation 19:9. We should look forward to the rapture and stop fearing what isn’t true.

[1] Eusebius, Church History 3.5.

[2] Ibid, 3.7

[3] Iraneaus, Against Heresies vol. 5 xxx sec. 3.

[4] Eusebius, Church History 3.5.

[5] Josephus, Wars 6.5.3.