Wednesday, June 11, 2014

The Sign of the End

What could possibly signal the end of the world? The only clearly discernible sign that Jesus gave his disciples was the Abomination spoken of by Daniel. Earthquakes, famines, wars, and even the fulfillment of the Great Commission are all signs Jesus cited, but they all lack the precision of Daniel's sign. When an event which occurs repetitively in a series, or is the accumulation of a running total, how can we know if any particular occurrence or addition was the last one without some telling detail?

For instance, what marks the conclusion of the Great Commission? Is it possible to discern when the last one who needs to be reached in order for it to be completed has been reached? The Abomination of Desolation, in contrast, is well defined, and even though occurring twice, is distinctive enough not to be confused between one occurrence and the other. Though it has already been modeled for us, as it was for Christ, by Antiochus Epiphanes, there will be no way to miss its ultimate fulfillment in the days of the Antichrist.

The description of this event, as recorded in Daniel 11, starts with the advent of Antiochus Epiphanes at verse 21, but ends with the actions of the Antichrist starting with verse 36 and moving into chapter 12. In effect, the actual, specific occurrence of the Abomination of Desolation (v. 31) is the fulcrum of a prophetic teeter-totter. On one end is the antetype, Antiochus Epiphanes, and how he relates to the prophecy. On the other end, is the antitype, the Antichrist and how he relates to the prophecy, and the middle references both of their involvements.

It's almost as if Daniel 11 was a preview trailer tracking at normal historical speed until the fulcrum was reached. At that point the reel was fast-forwarded until the time of its secondary and ultimate fulfillment occurred, then normal speed resumed. If that sounds a bit stretched to you, I understand your reticence. However, Jesus said there was still life in the prophecy, despite being fully familiar with the history of Antiochus, the Maccabees, and the battles between the Ptolemies and Seleucids. It seems to me, to understand something of this nature one has to invoke the concept of dual fulfillment.

John, the Revelator, saw the same event from the isle of Patmos millenia before its ultimate fulfillment. Strangely enough, even his insight was presaged by antetype within the Book of Daniel. God must have wanted to get the point across unmistakably to repeat it so many times from so many different vantage points. No wonder when asked what would be the sign of the end, Jesus said this would be it, and yet we still seem, by and large, to be in the dark about what definitively signals the end.

Thursday, June 5, 2014

Israel Proves Who God Is

I find Israel absolutely amazing: not the geographical location (I've never been there and have never wanted to go), but the people. It's not that their customs or their cooking are interesting to me in the least, but I find the bare fact of their existence just astonishing! Just by surviving, thriving, and eventually arriving back in their homeland, Israel has proved itself the most unusual of nations. That they are not relegated to the realm of myth and fable is mindboggling.

Let's review what they've been through: there has been seven attempts by world powers to annihilate, dispossess or exterminate this people throughout human history. These were not attempts by nasty tribal neighbors (as in the book of Judges or as in pogroms in the Diaspora), but by cream-of-the-crop, world-class empires, amongst the mightiest of their day. Yet, despite slavery, murder, pillage, rape, deportation, dispersion, and attempts at assimilation by the strongest in the heavy weight division, Israel survived as a people. A notable feat on its own, certainly, but Israel transcended mere survival and returned to their homeland as a nation after thousands of years away.

Imagine the U.S. or any nation surviving such a history. Despite Paul Revere and the Raiders' sentiment in song, there's no way I could see the Cherokee Nation returning even after one such brush with genocide and ethnic cleansing. Why did Israel come back from the dead seven times? Well apart from numerological concerns, the answer, the only answer is divine intervention.


Nature points, it seems to me, to the existence of a Creator. Given its remarkable history, Israel has to be a sign of who that Creator is. If we're at all perceptive, we'd have to see that the Creator is not the god(s) of the Hindus, the Buddhists, the animists, the pagans, and certainly not the Muslims, but the God of Israel. For Israel itself is a sign from God that proves that Yahweh, the God of Israel, is God, and that he is God alone.