Wanna Sound Really Smart?

This is my single favorite lesson when teaching the class. Not because of the subject matter, but because this lesson is truly the ultimate “light bulb” lesson. By that I mean this lesson is usually the one where the light goes on in people’s heads and they start piecing things together. It is also the lesson where they learn a phrase that makes them sound smarter than they really are…same for their teacher! The phrase is…

THE SIMULTANEOUS UNIFICATION OF THE ESCHATOLOGICAL COMPLEX

Sounds ominous, huh?

Well, first I need to tip my cap to the late Greg Bahnsen who used the phrase “Unity of the Eschatological Comlex” and is where I garnered the majority of the information that will follow. His work here is insurmountable and fully easy to understand. I simply added the word simultaneous for emphasis.

Despite it’s ominous sound, it is not only quite a simple concept, it may be the most important one to remember and will be used throughout the rest of our discussions. So, let us sparse out the sentence and see if we can simplify it. But once it is understood the reader should always try and use the phrase because you can’t always be smart, look smart or feel smart, but at least one can sound smart!

ESCAHTOLOGICAL COMPLEX

These are the things that make up the eschatological time line of events. These are the much discussed events that most agree will take place.

• RAPTURE

• THE SECOND COMING

• RESURRECTION OF THE SAINTS

• RESURRECTION OF THE DAMNED

• JUDGMENT OF THE ELECT

• JUDGMENT OF THE DAMNED

• LAST DAY / ETERNAL STATE

The Millennium will be discussed at length during this discussion, but since this discussion involves the timing of events our discussion of the Millennium will be limited to where it falls in relation to the above listed events. So, there you have the Eschatological Complex. Note before proceeding that most modern prophecy experts would place a time span of 7 years, 1,000 years or 1,007 between all of these events.

UNIFICATION

That which is unified in purpose or timing

SIMULTANEOUS

Taking place at the same time without time gap or space between the discussed events

So, this ominous sounding theological term literally just means that the discussed events take place simultaneously and are unified in purpose and timing. Isn’t that much easier?

So, how do we come to this conclusion? We must search the Scriptures for those passages that deal with these events and see how they are presented in terms of the timing and compare how similar events are described elsewhere. In other words if we find the Second Coming and the Resurrection of the Saints taking place at the same time in one passage and the Resurrection of the saints taking place at the same time as the Resurrection of the Damned, then we put all three together in a simultaneous and unified manner.

So, let us examine the many passages in question.

2 Thessalonians 1:7 and to grant relief to you who are afflicted as well as to us, when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels 8 in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. 9 They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might,

SECOND COMING and JUDGMENT of the DAMNED

1 Thessalonians 4:14 …through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. 15 … that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. 16 For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord.

RAPTURE, RESURRECTION of the SAINTS, SECOND COMING & LAST DAY

2 Tim 4:1 I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom

JUDGMENT & SECOND COMING

John 12:48 The one who rejects me and does not receive my words has a judge; the word that I have spoken will judge him on the last day

JUDGMENT & LAST DAY

John 6:39 And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day

RESURRECTION of the ELECT & LAST DAY

John 5:28 Do not marvel at this, for an hour is coming when ALL who are in the tombs will hear his voice 29 and come out, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment.

RESURRECTION of the DAMNED, RESURRECTION of the ELECT, JUDGMENT, SECOND COMING

John 11:24-25 Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” [25] Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live,

RESURRECTION of the ELECT & LAST DAY

1 Cor. 4:5 Therefore do not pronounce judgment before the time, before the Lord comes, who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart. Then each one will receive his commendation from God

JUDGMENT of the ELECT, JUDGMENT of the DAMNED & SECOND COMING

Corinthians 15: 23 But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. 24 Then comes the end

RESURRECTION & LAST DAY

Matt 25:31 When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. 32 Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats…46 And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.

SECOND COMING, JUDGMENT of the ELECT & JUDGMENT of the DAMNED

1 Corinthians 15:51 Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, 52 in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. 53 For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. 54 When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: Death is swallowed up in victory.

SECOND COMING, RAPTURE, RESURRECTION of the ELECT & LAST DAY/ETERNAL STATE

So, even with just the handful of verse above we see that these events that have been separated by a millennia or more are not separate, but rather take place simultaneously and are unified. Note the famous “sheep and the goats” passage where Jesus returns and immediately separates the sheep and goats. the Dispnesationalist would have Second Coming and Judgment of the saints separated by seven years and the Judgment of the damned separated by another 1,000 years. The passage simply does not allow it.

In John 5 we find Jesus stating that ALL of those in the tombs will hear His voice and will come out and be sent to their eternal destinies…simultaneously. Piecing together this puzzle is not difficult! These events are simultaneous and we cannot and should not force a separation of these events as the plain reading clearly dictates.

But why this historical separation by many?

That has to do with the two different “resurrections” discussed in one single passage in the Bible’s most difficult and challenging book. And in that book’s possibly most challenging chapter. But that is for the next post as we deal with the Millennium and the Resurrection.