Popular Eschatology and the Parousia of Jesus Christ

This is my final essay assignment from my New Testament as Literature Class last semester. My intention was to post all the things I wrote for that class on this blog just for a change of pace, as much of what I write here tends to be on the same kinds of subjects. I’m only posting it now because I forgot to do it back in December.

This post may prove to be a bit controversial and perhaps even offensive for some people. I don’t apologize for that. The scripture says what it says, and I can’t make it say otherwise. Let me be clear, though, that these ideas are not my own; I’m not nearly smart enough to figure this stuff out, and I’m not engaging in false modesty here, either. I tried to cite sources as much as possible (this was for a formal English class after all), but I’ve been studying this stuff for so long that I can’t ever remember where I got what idea and whose it was originally. Suffices it to say, probably as much as none of this is original to me.

One last thing to all of you English-type sticklers: I am aware that my works cited references and all of that are a MESS. That part of the paper was only worth like 5% of the grade, so um… I didn’t really care. 🙂

A Critical Investigation into the Parousia As Imparted By the Words of Christ and the Writings of Paul

One would generally think of Bertrand Russell and CS Lewis as strange intellectual bedfellows: the former a staunch unapologetic atheist and opponent of all brands of religiosity, the latter a champion of Christian apologetics. In his famous lecture (and later essay) Why I Am Not a Christian, Russell states as part of his argument against Jesus’ wisdom that Jesus “certainly thought that His second coming would occur in clouds of glory before the death of all the people who were living at that time. There are a great many texts that prove that.” Russell goes on to cite Matthew 24:34 (NRSV): “Truly I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place.” Russell is not alone in this criticism of Jesus, and indeed in The World’s Last Night C.S. Lewis agrees that Matthew 24:34 “is certainly the most embarrassing verse in the Bible.” He continues: “The facts, then, are these: that Jesus professed himself (in some sense) ignorant, and within a moment showed that he really was so.” It is evident, then, that both of these men- although in disagreement regarding the truth claims of Christianity itself- agreed on their understanding of Jesus’ eschatological views, and recognized that Jesus turned out to be mistaken about his coming. Lewis finds this to be embarrassing while Russell finds it to be vindicating. The student of NT literature ought to find this point to be extremely interesting, and the question arises: what do the gospels and the epistles (specifically those written by Paul) have to say about the parousia, and what resemblance do these ideas have to the common understanding of eschatology today? When we investigate the text, we find that Lewis and Russell are in fact correct about Jesus’ concept of the end of the age, the resurrection and the parousia; not only that, but we find that Paul and the other disciples were in agreement with Jesus. However, when rightly understood, it is not clear that this prediction by Jesus is one which the Christian (such as Lewis) should find embarrassing or the opponent of Christianity (such as Russell) should find vindicating, and in fact the opposite seems to be the case.

The Greek word parousia in the NT nearly always refers to a Messianic Advent in glory to judge the world, and is most often translated “coming” (Bauer Lexicon). Jesus refers to his coming numerous times in the gospels, but we find the most detailed information in the Olivet Discourse- which Raymond Brown calls the Eschatological Sermon (198)- of Matt. 24:1- 25:46. The parallel sequences in the other gospels do not differ greatly except that Matthew is a great deal more loquacious and includes some parables not found elsewhere, and so we will focus on Matthew primarily.

The context of the Olivet Discourse is important to consider, as it has great bearing on the meaning of the words of Jesus. In chapter twenty one, Jesus enters Jerusalem amid cries of “Hosanna!” from the people, who are expecting a Messianic leader to come and set up a glorious kingdom, and drive out the Roman oppressors. Jesus then enters the Temple and overturns the money tables; but instead of continuing on to claim lordship over the nation, as even his disciples probably expected him to do, he leaves the city and spends the night in Bethany. Returning the next morning, in an odd and perhaps moody bout of irritation, Jesus curses a fig tree which has leaves but no fruit to feed him and the meaning of this malediction becomes quite clear directly. Jesus enters the temple again and has the penultimate encounter (before his arrest) with the priests and elders, scribes, Sadducees and Pharisees; they ask him about his authority, he tells them three parables, and they ask three more questions. The questions they ask him are about legalistic and theological minutiae: paying taxes, the resurrection, and the greatest commandment. Jesus’ parables- The Two Sons, The Wicked Tenants, and The Wedding Banquet- are all about those who purport to serve God and look good on the outside, but do not produce fruit and are ultimately judged harshly. Thus the meaning of the cursed fig tree: a tree must bear fruit or it is worthless. The stark contrast Matthew draws here is between the religious leaders who look good on the outside, while Jesus demands goodness on the inside. The sequence accelerates toward its conclusion with seven woes against the scribes and Pharisees, during which Jesus calls them hypocrites, blind guides, whitewashed tombs, snakes, a brood of vipers, and finally in a surprising moment of clear prophetic vision, Jesus announces that (23:35-36) “upon you may come all the righteous bloodshed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah son of Barachiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar. Truly I tell you, all this will come upon this generation.” The scene climaxes in a lament over Jerusalem, and Jesus observes that her house is now left desolate.

The language and meaning here is very clear. Jesus is announcing that he is done with these “blind fools”, and tells them “fill up the measure of your ancestors” (23:32). The statement “fill up” is consistent with the numerology of the passage, as seven is used throughout the OT scriptures as a number signifying completeness, and indeed Matthew is therefore asserting that the sins of the religious leadership are soon completed. What, then, will be the consequences of this filling up of transgression? We do not have to wait long to find out, because Jesus continues with barely a pause into the Olivet Discourse. The observant reader must keep in mind that the context of this discourse flows directly out of the seven woes of chapter twenty three, and the announcement that Jerusalem, like the fig tree, is henceforth “desolate” (23:38).

The disciples- ever the rubes- make an off-handed remark to Jesus about the greatness of the Temple; instead of agreeing Jesus surprises them by predicting the Temple will be destroyed, with all the stones being thrown down. In order to appreciate the preposterousness of such a statement, one might compare it to a modern day prophet asserting that the Hoover Dam or the US Capitol will be destroyed- for the Temple was not only a symbolic center of Jewish culture and power such as the Capitol, but the sheer immenseness of the Temple itself, along with the walls of Jerusalem and the temple complex protecting it, would have seemed to preclude any possibility of such a travesty ever occurring, much like one may have difficulty imagining the gargantuan Hoover Dam being destroyed in anything other than a great modern cataclysm. But it is just this type of momentous event that Jesus is talking about. The disciples are so astonished, they inquire with a tone of dismay “When will this be, and what will be the sign of your coming and the end of the age?” James Stuart Russell’s 1878 book The Parousia contains a very honest and critical treatment of this Discourse, and the NT academician is urged to weigh James Stuart Russell’s observations without fear of compromised scholarship. JS Russell observes that the disciples’ interrogatory contains no hint of stipulation between the events of the destruction of the temple, the parousia, and the “end of the age”. On the contrary, the events are assumed to be one and the same by the disciples; and why wouldn’t they have assumed this? Jesus has just decreed a scant few minutes prior that all this will come upon this generation (23:36). Not only this, but on numerous occasions prior to even the Triumphal Entry of chapter twenty one, both John the Baptist and Jesus had somewhat vaguely, but undeniably, alluded to the idea that the parousia– the great judgment- would happen to the current generation, and the disciples would be around to see it (3:2, 10:23, 11:16,20-24, 12:38-45). The statement in 10:23 necessitates quotation: “…truly I say to you, you will not have gone through all the towns of Israel before the Son of Man comes.” Until the Son of Man comes (the word come is here the Greek word for the Advent, parousia) from where? We only know of one parousia, the same one Jesus begins talking about in detail after the disciples inquire about his prediction of the temple’s destruction. As demonstrated by their question, the disciples believed this coming to be connected to both the Temple demolition and the “end of the age”, and they fully expected to see this coming within their own lifetimes. This idea is contrary to the commonly held view today. Most Christians consider the parousia to be an event that is yet in the future. Although the disciples’ question clearly demonstrates they believed the parousia would happen in their lifetimes, this does not mean (as Betrand Russell and C.S. Lewis thought) that Jesus agreed with this notion. Did Jesus believe this to be the case himself?

Indeed, if we recall the vindication of Bertrand Russell and the embarrassment of C.S. Lewis, we will be forced to answer in the affirmative. Jesus answers the disciples’ question at length; he discusses false Messiahs, wars and rumors of wars, persecution, and the preaching of the good news to the whole world (24:14). Continuing, he talks about the Abomination of Desolation spoken of by Daniel in the OT, after which there will be much suffering, and immediately after this suffering the sign of the Son of Man will appear, and “all of the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see ‘the Son of Man coming on the cloud of heaven’ with power and great glory” (24:30). Brown’s comments regarding the Eschatological Sermon are somewhat at odds with James Stuart Russell. According to Brown, the overarching message here is the need for an attitude of faithful watchfulness, and readying oneself for the coming judgment (199). Specifically, Brown believes interpretation of the passage to be quite problematic due to its use of apocalyptic language and mixing of the present time with the future, and asserts that the disciples are asking two separate questions of Jesus (198). However, he does not address the fact that Jesus once again asserts, identically to his assertion in 23:36, “this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place” (24:34). Perhaps for him- like C.S. Lewis and Bertrand Russell- this particular verse would have constituted an all too obvious point of contention for Jesus’ veracity that Brown did not wish to confront. This is understandable, since even Brown, like most other Christian scholars, theologians, laypersons, and readers of the English translations have a preconceived idea of what, exactly, the “end of the age” (24:3) entails. Directly after his pronouncement about the imminence of these events to the current generation, Jesus himself says that “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away” (24:35). If Heaven and earth are to pass away at the end of the age, and this (empirically) did not happened within that current generation as Jesus clearly proclaimed on several occasions, then as Bertrand Russell and Lewis correctly point out, mainstream Christian eschatology has a real problem.

Though he ignores the “this generation” pronouncement of verse thirty four, Brown is correct about the apocalyptic genre of this portion (and other portions) of Matthew; yet it is probably incorrect to say that this renders the pericope so problematic as to be indecipherable in its meaning. James Stuart Russell says: “Happily there is no lack of parallel descriptions in the ancient prophets, and there is scarcely a figure… of which we may not find examples in the Old Testament, and thus be furnished with a key to the meaning of like symbols in the New.” It is well that Matthew’s close ties to Jewish heritage and culture are well documented, and so we can look into the Jewish scriptures, or the Tanach, for insight into what Matthew meant when using such phrases as “heaven and earth will pass away” and “the end of the age”. Heaven and earth is dealt with most easily. The OT prophets frequently referred to the cataclysmic destruction of what sounds like the entire material universe to the western ear; for instance, the prophetic utterance of Zephaniah 1:2-3 sounds like a prediction of the complete destruction of the cosmos, where God “will utterly sweep away everything from the face of the earth,” but it is clear from even the next verse that this prophesy is actually a dictum against the Kingdom of Judah. According to the HarperCollins Study Bible, even Jesus’ words in Matt 24:29- “the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of heaven will be shaken” is an echo of several OT prophesies against nations such as Assyria and Babylon. In light of the context, it does not to do the slightest violence to the words of the text to say that Jesus is not referring to the dissolution of the entire creation with “heaven and earth will pass away”, but instead to the dissolving of the Jewish system of governance and religious observance through the Temple worship system. We will recall that this has been Matthew’s central theme since the cursing of the fig tree in chapter twenty one. Jerusalem has had seven woes pronounced upon it, and its cup is full to overflowing in transgression. It is obvious, then, what the disciples and Jesus have in mind when talking about the “end of the age.” They had no concept of an entire world engulfed in flame and essentially becoming uncreated and then recreated, yet they did have a concept of the coming Kingdom of Heaven, an imminent coming which would signal the end of the current epoch of time, or Jewish age, and bring about a whole new age. Or, as James Stuart Russell deduced, “The ‘coming age’ was… to succeed the existing age or aeon… the end of which our Lord declared to be at hand. We conclude, therefore, that the ‘regeneration,’ the ‘coming age,’ and the ‘Parousia,’ are virtually synonymous, or, at all events, contemporaneous.” There is not time or space enough in this treatment to properly explain every detail surrounding the parousia as it discussed in the gospels in terms of the framework just outlined. However, there is perhaps enough to at least begin to suspect that C.S. Lewis (and Bertrand Russell) was not quite right after all, and instead had he had a proper understanding of Jesus’ eschatology, there may have been much less room for embarrassment. Indeed, if we take the timing of Jesus’ parousia predictions of Matthew seriously, there is much about which the Christian can rejoice, since the “end of the age” did indeed occur on time and as Jesus predicted it would in the year A.D. 70 with the destruction of the Jewish Temple and the “end of the age” (the Jewish Age).

We have investigated the gospel of Matthew, but what of Paul? In comparison to Jesus’ or John’s (or in some aspects even Peter’s) well-developed eschatology, Paul’s is severely lacking in detail, but there is by no means so little as to make a detailed discussion impossible. According to Howard Marshall, when it comes to I Thessalonians “The major distinguishing feature… is the extent of the teaching about the Parousia… The occasion for the extended teaching is the need to correct misunderstandings on the part of the readers,” and so it is evident that even as early as his visit to Thessalonica, the parousia constituted a prominent place in Paul’s teaching (179). W.E. Bell notes that “when one turns to Paul’s first eschatological writings… he finds that Paul describes the second coming in almost precisely the same way that Jesus did in the Olivet Discourse, using terminology and sequences so strikingly similar to those of Christ that one could hardly imagine a closer parallel apart from direct quotation.” Just like Jesus, Paul speaks of Christ’s return, from heaven, with a shout, with angels, the trumpet of God, a gathering of believers, in clouds, at an unknown time, as a thief, with unbelievers not aware of impending judgment, which come as birth pangs to an expectant mother; believers are told to watch, and are warned against drunkenness (see Table) (Bell). Clearly, Paul and Jesus are in agreement to a great extent regarding the details of the parousia.

Table 1 – Details of the Parousia compared

1. Christ Himself Returns	Matt. 24:30	I Thess. 4:16
2. From Heaven	Matt. 24:30	I Thess. 4:16
3. With a Shout	Matt. 24:30	I Thess. 4:16
4. Accompanied by Angels	Matt. 24:31	I Thess. 4:16
5. With Trumpet of God	Matt. 24:31	I Thess. 4:16
6. Believers Gathered	Matt. 24:31	I Thess. 4:17
7. In Clouds	Matt. 24:30	I Thess. 4:17
8. Time Unknown	Matt. 24:36	I Thess. 5:1-2
9. Will Come as a Thief	Matt. 24:43	I Thess. 5:2,4
10. Unbelievers Unaware	Matt. 24:37-39	I Thess. 5:3
11. As Expectant Mother	Matt. 24:8	I Thess. 5:3
12. Believers to Watch	Matt. 24:42	I Thess. 5:4
13. Warning Against Drunkenness	Matt. 24:49	I Thess. 5:7

Paul’s correction of the Thessalonican Church makes it clear that the resurrection of the dead will be cotemporaneous with “the coming of the Lord” (4:13-16). Paul continues “Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air; and so we will be with the Lord forever” (4:17). The common interpretation of this idea is that immediately after the resurrection of the dead is a “rapture” of believers; the Greek word here, harpazo, contains the idea of a snatching away by force (Strong). Paul asserts in verse fifteen that this teaching comes “by the word of Lord,” and we are left to wonder what part of the Jesus tradition Paul would here be citing. It may be that Paul has knowledge of a teaching of Jesus that is not found in the body of literature we have available to us. However, this snatching away does remind one of Jesus’ words in the Olivet Discourse “as the days of Noah were, so will be the coming (parousia) of the Son of Man… two will be in the field; one will be taken and one will be left… be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour” (Matt 24:37,40,44). It is interesting to note that for Jesus, this snatching away is like the sweeping away of the wicked at the Noahic flood, leading to the conclusion that one might prefer to be the one left, and not the one taken; if correct, this is consistent with Jesus’ view of the parousia as the coming judgment and ceasing of the Temple worship system. It would be odd, though, for Paul to cite this part of Jesus’ teaching and then to teach the polar opposite, i.e. that the ones being snatched up are the fortunate. It is possible, however, to reconcile the two treatments of the subject- that of Jesus and of Paul. The key is to understand that Paul’s snatching away does not, in fact, occur immediately after the rising of dead at the parousia, whereas Jesus’ “one.. taken.. one.. left” happens immediately. The word here rendered in English “then”: “…the dead in Christ will rise first. Then, we who are alive… will be caught up” (4:16,17), is the Greek word epeita. The English translation sounds as if Paul is positing an immediate catching up of “we who are alive and remain”; however, the Greek word which entails immediacy, i.e. “right then” in English, is not the word used. The word eita denotes immediacy. When a simple sequence of immediate events is described in the NT, the word eita is always used (e.g. John 19:27). Indeed, epeita– “after that” in English- throughout the NT refers to periods of time ranging from a few days (Gal 1:21) to as much as fourteen years! (Gal 2:1). Since Paul used the word epeita here, it is not unreasonable to posit the idea that he understood the catching up (harpazo) to be something that definitely did not occur immediately after the parousia. Instead, the harpazo would happen an unknown period of time after the resurrection. A detailed recounting of Paul’s concept of the resurrection is not within the scope of this investigation, but suffices it to say there is good reason to think that Paul had no concept of the modern day rapture followed by the conflagration of the entire world. He was not teaching the modern conception of rapture eschatology. Instead he was teaching a snatching up into heaven of all disembodied, believing souls who would live to see the “end of the age”, and die in the age to come, i.e. the age following the end of the Jewish age as taught by Jesus. What, then, is the harpazo? According to Paul, it is simply the “rapture” of a dead believer into heaven after his or her death. This rapture would happen “sometime after” (epeita) the resurrection of the dead (who prior to this were simply “asleep”, I Thess 4:13), the length of time after the resurrection of the dead depending on nothing more than how long an individual happened to continue living following the parousia.

The preponderance time statements surrounding the parousia throughout Paul’s epistles is weighty evidence in and of itself that Paul, like Jesus, expected the end of the age to occur in the soon (to him) thereafter. Speaking to his first-century audience, he uses statements such as “the Lord is at hand” (Phil 4:5), “the night is nearly over, the day is almost here” (Rom 13:12), “the God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly” (Rom 16:20), “eagerly waiting for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ” (I Cor. 1:7), “the time is short” (I Cor. 7:29), “the form of this world is passing away” (I Cor. 7:31), “all these things… were written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the ages have come” (I Cor. 10:11), “may your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ” (I Thess. 5:23). If the student of NT literature keeps in mind the principle of audience relevance when reading Paul’s letters- that is, that Paul had a first-century audience to whom he wrote, and that these letters are not addressed to you and I directly- it becomes clear that Paul is guilty of the same embarrassing “mistake”, according to CS Lewis, as Jesus and his disciples. Paul believed that the parousia would occur in his own lifetime.

The matter of whether Jesus and Paul were correct in every detail regarding their expectations of the end of the age is largely not within the purview of NT criticism; one who wishes to preserve the veracity of the teachings of the NT begins to move in the realm of devotionally motivated investigation, and that is outside the scope of this paper. However it is clear that the majority view within certain circles- a paradigm which entails concepts such as the end of the world and the rapture of large swaths of humanity- is not rooted in the words of Matthew’s gospel or Paul’s epistles. In fact, the words of Christ and of Paul themselves seem to teach a different eschatology, one that expected the soon (to them) fulfillment of prophecy, the end of the age in the disciples’ lifetime, and the contemporaneous resurrection of the dead. Since Jesus, Paul, apologists such as Lewis, and critics such as Bertrand Russell all seem to be in agreement regarding the true pedagogy of NT eschatology, it seems appropriate and worthwhile that the observations espoused within this investigation, as well as their implications, ought not to be ignored or dismissed as simply misguided (as they typically have been) within the church itself. Devotional and critical scholars of the NT alike stand to gain much from a clear and accurate understanding of NT utterance surrounding the subject of eschatology. In particular, the devotionally motivated scholar would do well to understand the importance of addressing these considerations head on, and not with roundabout, largely unsatisfactory explanations that do violence to the very words of the person they profess to follow in order to avoid being forced to reevaluate popular eschatology.

Works Cited

Bauer, Walter. A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature. Ed. Frederick W. Danker. New York: University of Chicago P, 2001.

Bell Jr., William E. A Critical Evaluation Of The Pretribulation Rapture Doctrine In Christian Eschatology. New York: New York University School of Education, 1967.

Brown, Raymond E. Introduction to the New Testament. New York: Bantam Dell Group, 1997.

Curtis, David B., Selected Sermons.

Lewis, C. S. The World’s Last Night : And Other Essays. New York: Harvest Books, 1973.

Marshall, Howard. Paul and Paulinism Essays in Honour of C.K. Barrett. Ed. M. D. Hooker and S. G. Wilson. New York: Society for Promoting Christian, 1982. 173+.

Meeks, Wayne A. HarperCollins Study Bible. New York: Harper San Francisco, 1997.

Russell, Bertrand. Why I Am Not a Christian : And Other Essays on Religion and Related Subjects. New York: Simon & Schuster, Incorporated, 1986.

Russell, J. Stuart. The Parousia : The New Testament Doctrine of Our Lord’s Second Coming. New York: Baker Group, 1999 (originally published 1878).

Strong, James, John R. Kohlenberger, and James A. Swanson. The Strongest Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible : 21st Century Edition. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2001