The Tapestry of Eschatology

The First Scene

As the old man huddled over the scroll something sparked his interest.

It had been 67 years since he had left his beloved city as a youth. He had not left for fortune and fame, but in captivity and uncertainty, thrown out of Jerusalem by God himself, not likely to ever return. Regardless, he made up his mind to stay faithful, and God had been gracious through it all. Now, huddled over that scroll, nearing the final stretch of his days, his melancholy could not be masked. How he ached for the Jews and Jerusalem: God's chosen people, God's chosen city, would both be abandoned forever?

From the barren ground of such longing, unexpectedly, hope sprang forth from the words of Jeremiah: just 70 years had been assigned for the desolations of Zion. Restoration was soon to come, really, just around the corner. Daniel began to pray for the Jews and Jerusalem.

In answer to Daniel's confessions and supplications for the future of the Jews and Jerusalem, the angel Gabriel was dispatched with God's response to Daniel's pleas. In typical God-like fashion, the answer went beyond what Daniel thought or asked. In a nutshell, God said to Daniel, "I'm not done with the Jews or Jerusalem, I have fantastic plans for both. In fact, it will take 490 years for me to complete my work with and in them."

For all of us studiously scouring what was given to Daniel for clues as to how it will all end, we can never lose sight of the most salient feature of this vision: it's not that there are 70 weeks that is of utmost importance, but that those 70 weeks were decreed for the Jews and Jerusalem. If one does not understand this critical point, there is no way that one will ever arrive at a biblically coherent eschatology.

The Second Scene
An old man walks across the rocky landscape of his island abode alone.

Though he's not paying attention to where he walks, he navigates perfectly, lost in thought in God's presence. He remembered all that had transpired since his days as a youth traveling with Jesus. So much had happened since then: the gospel had spilled out of Judea and Jerusalem and was now well on its way to the four corners of the earth. Every kindred, tribe and tongue drawn into its net as it trawled the waters of humanity. All the old gang had died and were buried, martyrs for the cause, and John, himself, the last eyewitness of Christ, walked these isolated crags in exile. Perhaps, Truman-like, he wondered how it all would end?

A trumpet blast, heralding the appearance of the First and Last, shattered his ruminations. The Lord, himself, arrived at just the right moment with some awe striking answers. In the prologue of the Apocalypse, we are told those answers were not just to satisfy John's curiosity, but also yours and mine, any who are Christ's servants. The salient, but oft overlooked, feature of this prophecy is its stated purpose of telling what soon must take place. In fact, it is reiterated at least twice (Revelation 1:3 and 22:10) that its coming is near. No one could argue, at least not without doing injustice to the text, that the Revelation covers a lengthy period of time, one that actually extends into eternity, and yet the initiation of the period was to be near 95 AD.

The Common Thread
What we have in the figures of Daniel and John are two handpicked messengers of God who were both given a vision, at a critical time of transition, of what would happen from their time to the end of time for the people on their heart. Daniel's concerns were about the Jews, so God's revelation to him was specifically about the Jews. John's concerns were for the church (which encompassed every tongue, kindred and tribe) so God's revelation dealt both with the Gentile church age and the last 7 years of Daniel.

From Daniel's time to the end of time, God would work specifically with the Jews for a total of 490 years to bring them to redemption. The only proviso not readily apparent is that 483 of those years would pass in succession, but the last seven would be split off and follow much later than the rest at the very end of time. From John's time to the end of time, God would work through a series of periods which would culminate in the removal of the Gentile church and the final seven years of Daniel, and then the millennium and eternity.

What these two figures represent are parallel tracks of a singular story. They are tied together, but are absolutely distinctive. To tangle the threads is a recipe for disaster which will turn one's eschatology into a confusing wad of uncertainty. That's not what God gave us those stories for, so come with me on a journey to untangle the mess and see the Tapestry of Eschatology in its stunning beauty  and clarity.