The Kingdom of God, Mentor Guide, MG02

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T H E K I N G D O M O F G O D

ought not seek the meaning of specific prophecies given to us through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit; it is, rather, to suggest as the angel tells the Apostle John in the Apocalypse that the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy (Rev. 19.10).

The theme of eschatology usually appears in the final volume of systematic theologies, and has traditionally been categorized as study of “last things” (Greek eschata ). Theologians and scholars usually divide their commentary about the last things into two broad categories, dealing with issues that relate either to individuals (which tend to focus on issues regarding the issues of death, resurrection, judgment, and the afterlife) or to the cosmos (dealing with the state of the entire human race, all beings and creatures, and finally all creation itself). Sometimes you find in theological works that cosmic eschatology is narrowly bounded to the events and issues which relate to the end of the world. This kind of study, however is not as good or as credible as those interpretations which seek to deal with the whole of the universe, for the terms in biblical use, like the Hebrew be’aharit hayyamim (in the Septuagint [LXX] written as en tais eschatais hemerais , “in the last days”) may refer either to the end of the present order or even, more generally, “hereafter.” The biblical view of time actually affects our understanding of eschatology. Of course, the biblical notion of time does not see time as cyclical (meaning that eschatology would only talk about events in the completion of a cycle), nor does it view it as we are prone to think about time, as merely or purely linear (meaning that eschatology would be unable to look at things dynamically). It would be best to say that the Bible’s view of time is a kind of a recurring pattern where God’s wrath and grace interact together until the pattern of his own sovereign will becomes known. Eschatology, then, should be seen in a dynamic way. It may speak of the consummation of the Kingdom in all different kinds of ways, whether it deals with the world’s end, a character’s end, or whatever. What is important is that when we discuss issues associated with the end of the world, we ought to know that for the sake of discussion, we freeze frame some subject for the sake of study. In reality, however, when the Kingdom is consummated, many of these various themes and realities will be occurring simultaneously, and this makes it quite difficult to

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