CHAPTER NINE
CONCLUSION
We have already had cause to notice the link in synoptic eschatology between the Parousia and the kingdom of God. In terms of the thesis we have been examining, the association of these two concepts (as in II Tim 4 1) is now seen to be natural as well as inevitable. The kingdom of God, his sovereign rule in the hearts of men, is seen to arrive at a number of points from the incarnation onwards; and yet the prayer, "Thy kingdom come," is always relevant. In the same way, the Parousia of God in Christ took place plainly and fully at Bethlehem and during the earthly ministry of Jesus. But tension arises about the context, exerting its moral demands as much in the realm of mission as ethics, and both truths cohere - that even as we wait for him, our Lord comes.
Given this fact we must approach Matthew 24 with utmost care and reverence, recognizing the analogy of faith and the difficulties involved in understanding certain sections of the discourse. It is our hope and prayer that a more biblical understanding of the Olivet Discourse will point the modern evangelical church away from rapture fever toward the important task of working for godly dominion in family, church and state. There remain a limited number of prophecies that have not yet been fulfilled and that must be interpreted both futuristically and as antecedents to the appearing of Christ and the rapture of the church. These make up the first stage of "the wrath of God"; they seem to include the 6th seal and the first four trumpets and bowls of Revelation; and they are summarized in the Lord's words, immediately after the tribulation of those days the ‘sun would lie unlit, the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of heaven shall be shaken’: and then . . . all the tribes of the earth shall see the Son of man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory (Mt. 24:29-31). Two particular qualifications remain to be noted about this first stage of the wrath of God. (1) It is discriminatory. For the church, though present on earth, will "prevail to escape all these things and to stand before the Son of man" (Lk. 21:36; cf. I Thess. 5:4, 9) while God's wrath is poured out "upon the men that had the mark of the beast." (Rev. 16:2, cf. v. 6). (2) It is brief, a matter of mere minutes. The second stage of wrath, includes the 7th seal of Revelation (that follows Christ's advent, 6:16) and the last three trumpets and bowls (among the survivors of which are found no Godly men, 9:20), contains events of considerable duration: "half an hour" (8:1), or five months" (9:5,10), and embraces the gathering of the kings of the whole world to their defeat at Armageddon (16:14, 16). But these events occur as subsequent to the Lord's appearing and are, as a result, irrelevant to the church's hope of imminent translation.
Dispensational pre-tribulationism is committed to prolonged antecedents and thus preserves imminence only at the sacrifice of the unified appearing. Reacting post-tribulationism, but is forced, because of its continuing belief in lengthy antecedents. Of the three views, historical, and futurist interpretation seems to render imminent post-tribulationism the most Biblically tenable. Furthermore, by its combining the worthwhile emphases both of dispensational pre-tribulationism and of reacting post-tribulationism, it restores the full, blessed hope of the church to one of present reality and of day by day anticipation.
It is possible that the Jews accused the Church of being an illegitimate offspring of Judaism. This kind of accusation was probably accompanied by personal attacks on Paul, the founder of so many Gentile Churches It was probably said that Paul was an apostate Jew and that this stigma remained on all the Churches which had descended from him. This would explain why Luke's defense of the Gentile mission is bound up with h is more personal defense of Paul. The way in which Luke emphasizes the faithfulness of the Apostles and Paul to their Jewish origins and their continued efforts to convert the Jews, may be in part a defense of the legitimacy of the Gentile Churches m the form of a defense of their co-founders The emphasis Luke places both on the Old Testament prophecies of the Gentile mission and on the Jews' willful rejection of the gospel may be his response to Jewish calumny. Such a defense may imply that while Luke's Church was predominantly Gentile, it lived in a predominantly Jewish milieu.