SUMMARY:  The word "eschatology" (literally "the last things", from the Greek eschatos) is that branch of theology which deals with finalities. These include Death, The Intermediate State, "the End Times", the Second Advent, Eternal Judgment and the World to Come, that is the consummation of God?s purposes concerning mankind and the universe. The general message is the final vanquishing of evil; "the Lord God omnipotent reigneth" (Rev 19:6): the details are subject to different interpretations It is unwise to be dogmatic about the minor issues relative to this fascinating topic. As Paul said: "I speak as to wise men; judge ye what I say"(l Cor lO:15), and again, "Consider what I say; and the Lord give thee understanding in all things" (2 Tim 2: 7). "For meanwhile we look in a mirror and guess at what we see, But then... face to face." (1 Cor 13:12. David Smith?s translation, The Life and Letters of St Paul, page 295).

---

ORIGIN AND DESTINY

Ultimates are often the explanation, and even the justification, of immediates: the end product sheds light on procedures (Cf. Deut 32:29. James 5: 9-11). We should read history backwards, for as William Barclay says:
"History is not a random kaleidoscope of disconnected events; it is a process directed by the God who sees the end in the beginning" (Daily Bible Study Notes on Mark 1:1).

God has a plan for His creation - a sovereign plan (Rev 4:ll, dia to thelema, "because of His will") - a sure plan, He began it, He will perfect it (Phil l: 6, epiteleo, to bring to an end, reach the intended goal) - a saving plan
(1 Tim 2:4, 2 Pet 3:9).
"The contemporary finds meaning only in the cosmic: either we are part of some great whole, or else meaningless fragments of existence" (E.Stanley Jones, The Way, page 5).

When God made man He had an end in view. The immediate purpose was for man to have dominion over the creation He had just brought into being. Man was God’s final work, fittest of all creatures to rule His earth. This exalted position is eulogised in Psalm 8:5-8. We see man "crowned with glory and honour" - king of creation. But the writer of Hebrews takes a more ultimate view of these inspired words , relating them to "the world to come" (Heb 2:5), that is, the "world without end" of Eph 3:21. The two are inextricably linked. Man was made for immortality (2 Cor 5:5), for infinite service (Rev 22:3), for inexpressible enjoyment of God (Rev 22:4, "they shall see His face").

Angels are not to rule the coming order, this is granted unto "sons (of God ) . . brethren of Christ" (Heb 2:10-12) who is "heir of all things" (Heb 1:2).

And how fitted was original man to fulfil his great task! As a space-being, man is between the infinite and the infinitesimat: "The human body is placed on the scale of magnitudes between the atom and the stars" (Man the Unknown, by Alexis Carrell, p.60,61). As a time-being he stands between the eternal past and the eternal future. Predestination and destiny meet in him.
As a spiritual-being "man is placed on the borderland of two worlds, the physical and the spiritual" (Synonyms of the Old Testament, by Girdlestone, page 159). Lower than the angels, higher than the animals mark "the point of union between two worlds - the heart of all created being" (Delitzch on Genesis, page 83).
Man is God-animated dust: clay impressed with the likeness of God.
Man is "spirit and soul and body" (1 Thess 5:23). His body was formed out of dust, his spirit was created by the divine inbreathing, his soul was made by the impact of the breath of God upon inert clay. His body (with its five senses) links him to material things; his spirit (with its refined sensibilities) enables him to comprehend spiritual things.
In his perfect state he can be at home in terrestrial or celestial spheres: he possesses organs of apprehension that enable him to comprehend and experience both natural and supernatural phenomena.

Does this give us a clue to why God made man?
The vast reaches of God’s universe extend beyond human computation. And who is to say that there is not more than one universe?
May not the "black holes" of outer space be doorways into unknown galaxies? Can we assume that there is only one habitable world?
Hebrews 1:2 and 11:3 speak of "worlds", not merely time cycles (aionas) but space-time continuums, tangible entitles, fitted out (katartizo) for habitation.
Over this vast kingdom of God Christ will rule - and His church with Him (Rev 3:21).
"The saints shall judge the world" (1 Cor 6:2,3), that is, the world to come. "We shall judge angels" - in the life to come.
And this "judging" is not merely a single session of assessment, it is a status, a position, an on-going situation as the "Judges" in the Book of that name. Rev 21:9 speaks of "The Bride, the Lamb’s wife". A Bride is only such at the nuptual ceremonies, Wife is a permanent "help meet".
As His Bride the church will be eternally joined to Christ (Eph 5:26), but as His Wife the Church will share His rule over all the vast domains in "a new heaven and a new earth".

Adam was the initial creation of God toward fulfilling this plan. He is called "son of God" (Luke 3:38). This term is always used of a creative act. Angels are "sons of God" (Job 38:7, Gen 6:2). What of Jesus? He, the Eternal Word, became the Son of God in incarnation (Luke l:35, "shall be called the Son of God"). "This day have I begotten Thee" (Psalm 2:7) speaks of a begetting in time.

Eternal generation is a theological fabrication. There was a time when the Father gave the Son "to have life in Himself (John 5:26, where edoke, aorist tense, speaks of an event in time).
This constituted our Lord "a quickening spirit" (1 Cor l5:45) , able to impart eternal life to others (John 17:2).

Adam was created with three qualities:

• RATIONALITY (Job 32:8),
• RIGHTEOUSNESS (Eccles 7:29)
• and RESPONSIBILITY as seen in the commission to a task ("dominion", Gen l:26) and committal to a test ("thou shalt not eat of it". Gen 2:17). Man was on probation.
  Immortality was not inherent in him: life was sustained by a rich vegetarian diet, augmented by "the Tree of Life".

	As long as he had access to the Tree of Life he would live (Gen 2:22), deny it, he would eventually perish.

The divine intention seems to have been that Adam and Eve would "replenish the earth" with their offspring, who after 1,000 years of terrestrial training would be fitted for celestial service, and, like Enoch, be taken up by God into "life and immortality"(2 Tim l:lO).
Adam failed: he defiled his righteousness by disobedience; he abdicated his responsibility, and his dominion passed over unto Satan (Luke 4:6), later to be restored by Jesus (Matt 28:l8); he lost his rationality (Rom l:22, 1 Cor 2:14, 2 Cor 4:4).
*From this point humanity degenerated: his life-span decreased from a near millennium to "three score years and ten" (Psalm 90:10); his morals deteriorated until God was obliged as "judge of all the earth" to purge the earth with the Flood (Gen 6:6,7,ll); his spiritual life degenerated into the vilest idolatrous practices (Rom 1:23).
Was Babel an astronomical structure dedicated to the worship of the heavenly bodies?
The decadence of human society was such before the Flood that, but for the grace of God, mankind would have perished completely (Gen 6:8,9).

But the purpose of God was not frustrated by these apparent set-backs.
After many generations of preparation Jesus came to rescue the human race, take over universal dominion, build a new and holy nation (Matt 21:43, 1 Pet 2:9) who will share His throne (Rev 3:21) and reign with Him forever (Rev 5:lO, 2 Tim 2:12).
This is our glorification when we reign as "joint heirs with Christ" who is "heir of all things" (Rom 8:l7,3O, Heb l:2).

DEATH

Death is the dissolution of the connecting-link between the physical organism of the body and the hidden life that sustains it.
The body, bereft of this life-principle, disintegrates into dust: "unto dust thou shalt return" (Gen 3:9).
"Thou turnest men to dust particles" (daka, dust particles). Psalm 90:3.
We all go to one place = the ground, dust. The LXX has tapeinosin, word used in Phil 3:21 - to soma tes tapeinosin, "body of our humiliation".
The spirit (the invisible principle of life) returns to God who gave it (Eccles 3:20, 12:7. Cf. Luke 23:46). Thus personality persists: God who gave man being now holds his soul in custody against the judgment and destiny of the Last Day.

Death is Separation

Death is separation. In physical death the soul is separated from the body - all sensible links with the material world are cut. Paul speaks of "in the body" (2 Cor 5:6, 12:2,3), which is equivalent to being alive.
He also speaks of a conscious state "out of the body". When did this happen?
The dates in the Newberry Bible lead us back to Acts 14, during which period Paul was stoned at Lystra and dragged out of the city "supposing he had been dead" (vs l9). Can we link the two?
While the infuriated mob dragged his battered corpse outside the city walls, Paul was in Paradise. Death is not annihilation, nor soul-sleep, but a state, for the saints, of conscious bliss.

There is also a spiritual death wherein the soul is separated from God, cut off from the joys of divine fellowship and blessing (Cf. Eph 2:l,5, Col 2:13, Luke 15:24, 1 Tim 5:6). We may add to this the death of "the old man" - the severance from the old life of sin by faith in Christ namely, sanctification. (Rom 6:2,8, Col 3:3).
The second death (Rev 2:11, 20:6,14) is eternal separation from God.
What does "second" mean?

C.L. Parker states that all men will be resurrected: the blessed, will have glorified bodies, the cursed will lose their bodies a second time as they are consumed in the fires of Gehenna.
But Jesus speaks of "bodies" in Gehenna (Matt 5:29, l0:28). And what is "the worm that dieth not" (Isaiah 66:24, Mark 9:44, 46, 48)? Dr David Brown comments on "the awfully vivid idea of an undying worm, everlastingly consuming an inconsumable body" (J.B.B. Commentary).

Death is Unnatural

God never intended death. Speaking of "mortality being swallowed up of life" (2 Cor 5:4,5) Paul affirms that "God made us for this very purpose" (NIV). We were created for immortality.
But Adam was not inherently immortal; he needed frequent visits to "the Tree of Life" to sustain him in physical vitality (Gen 3:22). He was immortal in design but not in nature.
Will the inhabitants of the New Earth be of the same nature - perfect, yet dependent? (Rev 22:2). Only God "hath immortality" (1 Tim 1:17, 6:16) inherently: man receives it from Him, either explicitly as a member of the Body of Christ, or implicitly as the rest of the redeemed (2 Tim 1:10).
It is important to note that immortality in the New Testament refers to the body of man and not to his soul.
The persistence of personality is clearly seen, but the term "immortality of the soul" is Platonic rather than Scriptural.
This use of the term "immortality" is clearly seen in 1 Cor 15:51-54, where "mortal" refers to the living body and "corruptible" to the dead body.
This sheds light on Rom 8:11, where the quickening of our "mortal bodies" by the indwelling Spirit of God implies a divine strengthening that enables us to enjoy divine health, a super-normal renewing of our physical faculties to be made "strong out of weakness" (Hebrews 11:34).
The vitality of Paul sprang from divine enabling (2 Cor 12:9).

Death is a Penalty

Adam knew only one prohibition: "in the day thou eatest thereof" (the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil) "thou shalt surely die". (Gen 2:17).
All things - but one - were his to enjoy: but he broke that one law, and lost all things. And no man has been able to turn back the results of his defection. "By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned". (Rom 5:12). "In Adam all die". (1 Cor 15:22).
But did Adam die in the same day that he sinned as the decree stated? In judgment God showed mercy.
The sentence of physical death was commuted to a banning from the Tree of Life and a banishment from the Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve were to live on a lower plane.
Toil and travail were to be their lot.
But this primeval pair also died spiritually: fear took the place of friendship, and hiding the place of worship.
But God did not totally abandon them. He placed a Tabernacle at the gate of Eden. There fallen man could meet a merciful God.
And all this on the basis of sacrifice.
Where did the skins come from wherewith God clothed His sinful but penitent creatures?
The first blood shed on earth was the blood of atonement, type of the ultimate sacrifice of the Son of God - "the seed of the woman" that would bruise the serpent’s head (Gen 3:15, cf. 1 Pet 1:18-22).

Death is an Enemy

"The last enemy" (1 Cor 15:26).
By yielding to Satan, Adam became his slave, for "his servants ye are to whom ye obey" (Rom 6:16). Not only were man’s possessions ceded to the devil, Luke 4:6, but also "the power (Kratos - power, rule, sovereignty) of death" (Heb 2:14).
Did Satan hold "the keys of death and hell" (Rev 1:18) before Christ wrested them from Him?

By His death and resurrection our Lord stripped Satan of his authority (Col 2:15).
And what of Jude 9? Satan arrogantly contended the release of the body of Moses to appear on the Mount of Transfiguration with Jesus.
(There was no contention over the body of Elijah - he went straight to heaven - 2 Kings 2:11).
The devil was soundly rebuked by Michael - though with dignity.
He dare not "bring a railing accusation" - for Satan held an office and status afforded him by God.
But God still held sovereign power, and the devil was ill advised to resist the divine commission to recover the body of the long-dead patriach.
Before the resurrection of Jesus, Satan had a case: but not now. He has been rendered powerless, stripped of authority.
Death as an enemy fills mankind with enslaving fear, robs him of all terrestrial benefits and reduces him to pitiful impotence.
But death will one day itself die and Saints be delivered from the bondage of corruption into glorious immortality, Rom 8:21-23.

Death is Falling Asleep

A fitting euphemism; a dead person looks as though he were asleep. This expression is often used in Scripture: Jairus’ daughter (Matt 9:24), the Saints who rose (Matt 27:52), Lazarus (John 11:11), Stephen (Acts 7:60), Christians (1 Cor 11:30, 15:20, 51, 1 Thess 4:14).
But sleep is not loss of personality, or even consciousness, "I sleep, but my heart waketh" said the bride of Solomon’s Song (5:2). Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were alive to God in the days of Moses though they had been departed from the body for many years (Exodus 3:6, Matt 22:32), and Heb 12:23 speaks of "the spirits of just men made perfect" - unconsciousness is a state of imperfection.
And from such we may awake, John 11:11-13.
That soul-sleep is a fallacy is seen from Daniel 12:2. It is the body that "sleeps in the dust of the earth", the soul is "gathered unto the fathers" (Gen 25:8, 17, 35:29, 49:29,33, et al). The wicked are in conscious torment, Luke 16:24, the saved are in conscious bliss, Phil 1:23, "with Christ".
The Old Testament preacher’s gloomy comments, Eccl 2:15, 3:19,20, 6:6, 9:3,5,10) show his "under the sun" philosophy, a phrase he uses 29 times.
This is a man’s view of life: all ends at the grave. But even the preacher changes his mind, and sees the longing for immortality, (Eccl 3:11, where "world" means the eternal age) realised in a judgment to come (12:14).

Death is a Departure

What a poignant expression in Genesis 35:18, "As her soul was in departing (for she died)"? Old Simeon, in his Nunc Dimittis, prays: "Lord, now lettest thy servant depart in peace" (Luke 2:29). The word "depart" (apoluo) is used in Matthew 27:15, of the release of a prisoner. We sing:
"Here is this body pent, Absent from Thee I roam, Yet nightly pitch my moving tent, a day’s march nearer home".
Did Jesus feel like this?
He did say, "How am I straightened" (Luke 15:20) where sunecho means to be hemmed in, restricted, besieged, Luke 8:45, 19:43.
Death, for the Saint, is released into a fuller life where the restrictions of a mortal body impede the spirit no more. Peter describes his imminent demise as "putting off this my tabernacle" (2 Pet 1:14).
This corresponds with Paul’s comments in 2 Cor 5:1-4, where death is described as striking of camp, the end of a temporal ailing body that has become a burden, a body that groans under the weight of its ageing existence.
Peter speaks of death as an "exodus" (for thus the word "decease" is in the original) a going forth to a greater destination - to the "Land of Promise" (cf. Heb 11:22). Paul, speaking of death, twice uses the Greek word analysis (Phil 1:23, 2 Tim 4:6). This word means a thorough loosening up.

Christadelphians interpret it of the resolving of the body into its component elements.
A happier explanation is to take the word in its various uses of the time.

• First, it was a naughtical term, "a metaphor taken from the commander of a vessel in a foreign port, who feels a strong desire to set sail and get to his own country and family", (Adam Clarke). To weigh anchor and depart.
  
• Secondly, it was a military term, used of breaking camp. "The body is looked upon as a mere tabernacle. Each day is a march nearer to home, and death is the last striking of the tent on arrival", (Ellicott’s Commentary).
  
• Thirdly, it was an agricultural term, "probably a metaphor from the yoking and unyoking of transport animals", (Souter).
  
• Fourthly, it was a philosopher’s term, for the solution of a problem or the unravelling of a mystery. The enigmas of life will be turned into "a new song" (Rev 14:3) in the day of our release.
  
• Fifthly, a legal term, for the appeal of a law. The laws that bind us to frustration and decay will have no more power over us, Rom 8:23, 2 Cor 5:4.
  
• Sixthly, a magical term, used of the breaking of a spell. In death we find freedom from sin and the curse of the law, and are beyond the power of evil to bewitch.
  
• Seventhly, a weaving term, the loosing of the web from the loom of life. The warks of time and the wefts of incident are weaving in us a pattern for eternity. Our heavenly attire will be one of our own weaving, Rev 19:8, the righteousness, or good deeds, of the Saints.

Death is an Arrival

	For a Christian, to die is to enter a better and closer relationship with the Lord he loves.

Paul speaks of death as "going home". In 2 Cor 5:6,7 he uses two terms: endemeo (translated "at home" in verse 6, and "present" in verse 7).
Which means to be among one’s own people, at home, or simply present. The other term - ekdemeo - means to leave one’s own people or country, take a journey, get away from.
"To change one’s residence, go abroad", (Moulton & Milligan). T
he apostle also speaks of death as "being with Christ, which is far better" (Phil 1:23), or as the NIV has it, "better by far".

Thus death is robbed of its terror.

---

Footnotes: * Vegetation deteriorated, losing its sustaining qualities. Hence after the flood, man was allowed to eat meat -- a source of nourishment now needed to maintain the vital energies of mankind.

---

About the Author...

---

Found this information useful?   BOOKMARK this page NOW!
Web Site by S & R Cope in association with

Appeared in Vanguard Issue 5 -- February 1999
"...contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints" -- Jude v3

---

© Copyright 2006 Christian Witness Ministries, except where noted. All rights reserved

Archives

SEARCH the CWM Web Site

Site Map

Resources

-Last revised-Monday, October 09, 2006