The Doctrine of The Return of Christ: EFCA Ordination (Part 9 of 11)

For the last few months, I’ve been writing about my ordination process in the Evangelical Free Church of America. If you’d like to read about what the process looks like, check out the first post in the series (here). Throughout the autumn, I’ll occasionally share the remaining sections of my ordination paper, which engages with our denomination’s 10-point statement of faith. I know these posts are dense. Please hang with me through a few more.

This week’s post is from the section on the return of Christ. In the summer of 2019, the EFCA expanded its statement of faith to include all orthodox views of the glorious return of Christ. I’m the first pastor who holds an amillennial view of the return of Christ to be ordained in the new era.  

Thank you for the prayers and encouragement along the way,
Benjamin

{Previous posts in this series: God, The Bible, The Human Condition, Jesus, The Work of Christ, The Holy Spirit, The Church, Christian Living}

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Christ’s Return

9. We believe in the personal, bodily and glorious return of our Lord Jesus Christ. The coming of Christ, at a time known only to God, demands constant expectancy and, as our blessed hope, motivates the believer to godly living, sacrificial service and energetic mission.

Perhaps it would be helpful at this point to include a brief paragraph that is more memoir than theology. As long as I can remember, I have appreciated the EFCA; my family almost exclusively attended EFCA churches as I grew up, and my father often served as a lay elder. As such, in my limited understanding of eschatology, I identified with historic premillennialism. This view abided during my time at a conservative, evangelical Presbyterian seminary and continued into my first pastorate within a nondenominational, reformed baptist church. There, my fellow teaching pastors were both amillennial. By the way, I had tried to be hired in the EFCA directly after seminary, but at the time there was no room in the inn, at least very little room; I graduated from seminary on the heels of the economic recession and churches weren’t hiring. But my hope was always to return to the EFCA. Then I did. Community EFCA in Harrisburg hired me. A year went by and, besides pastoring, I studied and refreshed the EFCA licensing paper I had written while in seminary. Still, my historic premillennial position abided. For those who were at my licensing council, you’ll remember that what was otherwise a fairly smooth-going licensing exam, shall we say, had more than a few bumps when it came to the millennium and my allegedly questionable hermeneutic applied to the days of creation and modern day Israel. I wasn’t lying when I said I held to historic premillennialism. But I was naïve—naïve not only about the influence of my seminary but also the influence of my fellow teaching pastors at my former church and my own hesitancies about some aspects of historic premillennialism. I’m thankful for those bumps, the pointed questions, and the one no-vote I received because together they sent me on a four-year trajectory to study the issues in more detail. I now hold to amillennialism, which, among other topics related to Christ’s return, I will defend below.

Jesus will return personally and bodily (Mt 24:30; 26:64; Acts 1:11; Rev 1:7). This view stands over and against the view that a “return” of Christ in the hearts of his followers could fulfill scriptural promises. The two major interpretive decisions related to Christ’s literal and physical return are the nature and timing of the tribulation and the millennium. With respect to the tribulation, many Christians interpret this term to refer to a period of intense struggle, calamity, and persecution or a “great tribulation,” as Jesus calls it (Mt 24:21). Historic premillennialism understands the Bible to teach that the church, as a whole, will remain through this tribulation period and after a time (seven years being either literal or symbolic) Jesus will return to set up his millennial kingdom on earth. This understanding of the tribulation isn’t too different from my amillennial understanding of the tribulation, though it obviously differs significantly on the millennium. Amillennialism rightly understood does not deny the existence of the millennium as atheism denies the existence of God; rather, amillennialism understands the Bible to speak of Christ’s millennial reign to be taking place in heaven right now. The amillennial view is consistent with passages that intricately link the timing of Christ’s return with the final judgment and eternal state (Rm 8:17–23; 2 Thes 1:5–10; 2 Pet 3:3–14), not two returns of Christ with a great intervening period of time between the returns, which would make for odd readings of passages like John 5:28–29 (“the hour is coming . . .” where the “hour” would be separated by 1,000 years). True, some passages in the OT, Isaiah 11 and 65 for example, seem to describe a time “better” than the church age but “not as great” as the new heavens and new earth. Yet these passages could be speaking poetically of the new heavens and new earth. In short, what some see as taking place in the millennium can actually be seen as taking place in the final state. A rigid interpretation of Isaiah 65:20, which speaks of those dying after a long life, is odd to me, when v. 19 speaks of no more weeping. How could physical death not produce weeping no matter how long one lives?

Additional consideration, of course, must be given to Revelation 20. I favor the interpretive scheme called progressive parallelism, which understands the book of Revelation to recapitulate similar sequences of events, often with each cycle moving the description of the end a bit further. So, for example, what happens with the seals in chapters 4–7 is roughly parallel with what happens with the trumpets in chapters 8–11, and so on. Space does not allow for much elaboration, but events like stars falling from the sky “as the fig tree sheds its winter fruit when shaken by a gale” (6:13) push me away from a more chronological reading of the book. Once stars have plopped upon the ground like over-ripe figs, there can’t be much left.

Addressing the classic text of Revelation 20:1–6 directly, a few things should be said. A great case can be made for describing Satan as bound in the church age and unable to deceive the nations, at least to the degree he did in the OT (2 Kg 17:29; Mt 12:28­–29; 28:18–20; Lk 4:6; 10:17–18; Jn 12:31–32; Acts 14:16; 17:30; 26:17–18; Col 2:15; 1 Jn 3:8). Also, the reign of God and Christ upon a throne is frequently (some say exclusively) spoken of in Revelation as taking place in heaven (1:4; 3:21; 4:5; 7:9ff; 8:3; 12:5; and dozens of others). The 1,000 years mentioned in vv. 3, 5, 6, and 7 from which all our millennial views build their name (pre-, post, a-) could surely be, in such a highly symbolic book, a round number suggesting a long period of time (cf. the figurative use of 1,000 in passages such as Dt 7:9; 32:30; Josh  23:10; Jud 15:16; 1 Sam 18:7; 1 Chron 16:15; Job 9:3; Ps 50:11; 84:10; 90:4; Ecc 6:6; 7:8; SoS 4:4; Is 30:17; 2 Pet 3:8). And it doesn’t feel like a stretch in context to see the “first resurrection” of those reigning with Christ as the believers raised to the intermediate state, whereas unbelievers do not experience this resurrection but only the “second death.” Additional evidence for considering the “first resurrection” as those alive in the intermediate state (not those raised to life on earth during a premillennial reign of Christ) comes from the serval parallels of Revelation 20:1–6 with 6:9–11 and the decidedly heavenly locale of those martyrs. The parallels are a little more explicit in the Greek but can still be seen in translations. Revelation 6:9 says, “(A) I saw . . . / (B) the souls of those who had been slain / (C) for the word of God and for the witness they had borne,” and 20:4 says, “(A') I saw / (B') the souls of those who had been beheaded / (C') for the testimony of Jesus and for the word of God.” Then add to this that the whole vision in Revelation 20 (“I saw,” v. 1) feels very heavenly; missing from the text are earthly details about Christ reigning upon earth, the temple, the land of Canaan, and the holy city of Jerusalem (although perhaps some infer that the vision takes place on earth because the angel comes down from heaven). For all these reasons, I believe the amillennial view of a single, definitive return of Christ at the end of time cooperates best with the authorial intent of not only the broad witness of Scripture to the end times but the specific witness of Revelation 20.

Moving on, a theological tension appears concerning our expectancy of the Lord’s return, but the tension is also seen within the Scriptures. On the one hand, many verses in the Bible seem to indicate that the Lord could return at any time and we must be ready for him (Mt 24:42–44; Lk 12:40; 1 Thes. 5:2). On the other hand, many passages seem to indicate that certain events must precede the coming of the Lord, including the tribulation (Mk 13:7–8; Mt 24:15–22; Lk 21:20–30), preaching the gospel to the nations (Mt 24:14), signs in the heavens (Mt 24:29; Is 13:10), the salvation of Israel (Rm 9–11, esp. 11:1–2, 25–26), and the coming of the man of lawlessness (2 Thes 2:3). Some propose the solution of two returns of Christ: first, a “secret” or pre-tribulation return of Christ to rapture his church from the world before the tribulation and then yet another return to set up his millennial kingdom. This view is often associated with dispensationalism. The post-tribulation view, which I hold, teaches that it is possible that all of the signs have been fulfilled or could be fulfilled very quickly but that it is more probable that the signs are not yet fulfilled. Therefore, fidelity to God’s promises in Scripture demands we maintain “constant expectancy” regarding Jesus’s return, while at the same time make sure that when Jesus does come, he finds us not idle but busy at his work in his world in service to him (Mt 24:36–51; Rm 13:11–13; 1 Thes 5:1–11; Rev 3:3).

Concerning the relationship between ethnic, national Israel and the church, some go too far when they speak of replacement theology as though nothing special remains about the Jewish people and thus push them out of the way. A better term, it seems to me, is fulfillment theology because the OT hope was always for an expansion of light to the Gentiles under the reign of the Messiah, an expansion that did not push out ethnic Israel but instead reconciles them both to God in one body (Eph. 2:11–22; Is 46:9). The true “Israel of God” was always a believing Israel, which today includes both believing Jews and believing Gentiles (Gal 6:15–16; cf. Rm 4:16ff). A passage like Romans 11:25–26 seems to expect an increase in conversions of ethnic Jews near the return of Christ, which is wonderful news.

On the one hand, no person knows the exact time of Christ’s return (Mt 24:36–44; 1 Thes 5:1–3; 2 Pet 3:10; Rev 3:3), which should engender humility. On the other hand, while our interpretation of some specific aspects about the end times remains partially uncertain, believers in Christ must remain fully assured that Jesus will come. For those who have put their faith in him, it will be a glorious and joyful day—a reality that should propel believers “to godly living, sacrificial service and energetic mission” (cf. 2 Pet 3:14).

Discussion Questions (Created by the EFCA)

Personal, Bodily and Premillennial Return

1.  Briefly describe your position on the second coming of Jesus Christ. Include your views on the tribulation, the rapture of the church, and the millennium.

2.  How is your view different from other positions on the millennium? Please define the other positions.

3.  Why is it essential to state explicitly that Christ’s return is “personal” and “bodily?”

Israel and the Church

4.  What is your understanding of the relationship between Israel and the Church as it pertains to eschatology? Comment on Rom 11:25–27.

5.  How do you understand Jesus’ teaching of the kingdom and how does the kingdom relate to eschatology?

Effect on the Believer

6.  Why is it important to include a statement of humility regarding the exact time of Christ’s return, viz. “at a time known only to God?”

7.  How do you understand biblically “constant expectancy,” and what does it mean to live this way? What is the importance of the word “demands?”

8.  How do you define and understand the “blessed hope?” How does the biblical teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ’s return bring you hope?

9.  How does Christ’s return motivate you “to godly living, sacrificial service and energetic mission?”

* Photo by Aniket Deole on Unsplash