Introduction
Projecting the future is what scholars refer to as an epistemological pickle. Scripture solves that problem by giving a framework for looking at both history and the future that centers around God’s promise of cosmic redemption. Consider one example.
It shall come to pass in the latter days
Micah 4:1-2
that the mountain of the house of the Lord
shall be established as the highest of the mountains,
and it shall be lifted up above the hills;
and peoples shall flow to it,
2 and many nations shall come, and say:
“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,
to the house of the God of Jacob,
that he may teach us his ways
and that we may walk in his paths.”
For out of Zion shall go forth the law,
and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
This cosmic redemption ought to inspire not merely optimism, but ambition. Ambition requires dreams sanctified according to the future God promised. This future goes by the name of the Kingdom of God, which is planted, growing, and awaiting its culmination in eternity. Consider the following tri-perspectival view of ambition.
First, a view of the future
There is a healthy way to look at the future and an unhealthy way. Peter Berger has suggested that one of the marks of our modern times is that people’s imagination and activity are geared toward the future. People are always looking for the next thing.[1] In the twenty-first century, people despise tradition and idolize young people, young ideas, and whatever happens to be the fresh thing. This is an unhealthy preoccupation with the future that not only diminishes any means of restraint but it diminishes cosmic significance. This modern way of looking at the future—let’s call it secularized providence—stands in contrast to the traditional society, where people look to the past, value tradition, and esteem the elderly.[2]
Theologically, the category Christians use to view the future is eschatology. Christian eschatology assumes a commitment to eternity (2 Pet. 3:18). Eschatology is not an exercise in speculation. It’s not merely the ending of temporal events. It is the culmination of God’s grand design, which takes the force of a divine summons for every moment of life. The Christian conception of the future is linear because God made the world, God has a plan for the world, and God’s plan for the world includes a beginning and an end. The end is settled. It can be no other than the “personal, visible, glorious return of Christ.”[3]
“Remember this and stand firm,
Isaiah 46:8-11
recall it to mind, you transgressors,
9 remember the former things of old;
for I am God, and there is no other;
I am God, and there is none like me,
10 declaring the end from the beginning
and from ancient times things not yet done,
saying, ‘My counsel shall stand,
and I will accomplish all my purpose,’
11 calling a bird of prey from the east,
the man of my counsel from a far country.
I have spoken, and I will bring it to pass;
I have purposed, and I will do it.”
Second, a view of the past
The only thing most people know about history is the quote by the philosopher George Santayana, from his 1905 book, The Life of Reason, where he says, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” It comes as a shock when people read the Bible and discover that God intends for history to repeat itself.
What does a biblical view of history look like if we start with God rather than George Santayana? Because God never changes, and because God’s standard never changes, and because God’s purpose never changes, he created a world in which history can be repeated.[4] The affliction the church endured during the Jewish Wars and the destruction of the temple in AD 70—which Jesus prophesied about in Matthew 24—are prototypes of the persecution that Christians have faced ever since. Many of the predictions in Revelation about the destruction of the temple concern principles and happenings that recur throughout the church age. Paul’s exhortations in 1 Corinthians 7 are specific to a “present distress” (1 Cor. 7:26), yet they are operative for every generation. The Old Testament prophecies reflect not only the specific calamity of the moment but also the principles of human conduct and divine moral activity.
Think of how often in Scripture one story reminds you of another. In Genesis 12, Abraham deals with Pharaoh by pretending his wife Sarah is his sister. Then in Genesis 20, Abraham does the same thing in dealing with Abimelech. Then in Genesis 26, Abraham’s son repeats his father’s mistake. The Egyptians urge Israel to leave by giving them silver and gold (Ex. 12:33-36) and Cyrus decrees Israel to return to its homeland with gifts of silver and gold (Ezra 1:4). Jesus preached the Sermon on the Mount (Mt. 5-7) and the Sermon on the Plain (Luke 6:20-49). Different sermons, but basically the same one.
God created a world in which the future is linear, yet history repeats. Our task is to contemplate what God has said in his Word, consider what God’s people did in obedience or disobedience, and learn righteousness. We can’t go back and redo Israel’s exact situation and choose the right path for them. But we can learn faithfulness in our new circumstances to re-create the obedience Israel should have chosen (Heb. 3:7 – 4:13). That is the sense in which God created a repeating-linear world. This is what it means to read the Old Testament and use it as a guide.
“Now these things took place as examples for us, that we might not desire evil as they did.”
1 Corinthians 10:6
“By turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes he condemned them to extinction, making them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly.”
2 Peter 2:6
Third, a view of the present
The eschatological vision of Christianity requires living with a certain ambition driven by the fact that righteousness outlives greed and oppression. There is a living hope of righteousness for the world. The Old Testament prophets announce two primary threats to peace: First the internal threat of corrupt rulers leading the people to idolatry. Second, the external threat of conquering nations leading the people to idolatry. In God’s good time, the sun will rise and the Godly ambition of Micah 4 (quoted above) will be vindicated and rewarded. In the meantime, as God’s steward, the church has the obligation of faithfulness.
Christians in every city across the world ought to live with a thousand small accommodations of hope. This means anticipating God’s cosmic ambition rather than thwarting it. It is an “accommodation of hope” because the faithful will have to make accommodations to choose joy over gloom. They are going to have to adjust their thinking away from the trendy defeatism rampant in evangelicalism and toward faith in God.
The Spirit washes over his people when they are baptized and united to Christ. By faith, they gain the capacity to hope all things in love (1 Cor. 13:7). The Spirit gives them the ability to predispose faithfulness, which requires recognizing the tendencies favorable to it. This isn’t the power of positive thinking. Rather, God’s people have a divine purchase for the future God has promised. Living in faith with Godly ambition mobilizes God’s people in the work of cosmic redemption.
God’s cosmic redemption might strike Christians as a nice thought but nowhere near the current situation. Christians might think these things are so esoteric and far away that whatever hope emerges from the Bible is vulnerable to disappointment. This is because people mainly think with reference to an hour from now or a year from now. They struggle to comprehend the ‘right now’ meaning of God’s eschatological promises that seem so far from us.
Conclusion
Philippians 2:10-11 tells of a coming time when every knee shall bow and every tongue confesses that Jesus Christ is Lord. Consider the fullest aspect of what this great consummation means. It means there will be a time when doubts have disappeared. There will be a time when every apparent contradiction is removed. There will be a time when all of science converges into one great conviction professing the Living God. There will come a time when all of art is devoted to the one Great End. There will come a time when all of human thinking is permeated by the refining, ennobling influence of Jesus Christ. There will come a time when every desire is brought into obedience to Christ.
If we are living in vital communion with the risen Lord and with each other; if we are convinced of the truth of our message, then we can live every day and fulfill every task—large and small—with Godly ambition. God can use anyone at any time to influence his Kingdom. And God usually exerts that influence through people marked by faith, hope, and love.
Other eschatological articles
[1] Peter L. Berger, Facing Up to Modernity: Excursions in Society, Politics, and Religion (New York: Basic Books, 1977), 73.
[2]David F. Wells, Above All Earthly Pow’rs: Christ in a Postmodern World (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005), 238ff.
[3] Kenneth Gentry, He Shall Have Dominion: A Postmillennial Eschatology (Chesnee, SC: Victorious Hope Publishing, 2009), 283.
[4] This doesn’t mean the world unfolds according to the cyclical view of history, which views history as an endless series of cycles with no telos in mind. Its better to think of historical progression as God running the same play repeatedly until he brings history to its determined end.
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