Category Archives: Eschatology and Afterlife

Gandhi and Rob Bell, newfrontiers and Hell

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Phil Whittall, who blogs as The Simple Pastor, is the leader of a newfrontiers church. But in many ways he is very different from the face of newfrontiers presented on the blogosphere by Adrian Warnock, lover of Puritans and scourge of egalitarians. For one thing, Phil is an Arminian. For another, he seems much more interested in simple living and treating the earth responsibly than in strident theological debate.

Mohandas Karamchand GandhiSo it was something of a surprise to read the first part of what Phil wrote, in answer to a provocative question by Rob Bell, on Is Gandhi in hell?:

I guess the answer to that question depends on what you think should happen to racist, sexual pervert who believed in reincarnation. For that, according to a new biography of Gandhi is exactly what he was.

Phil continues with quotations giving evidence for these claims, although he was no more racist than anyone in his time, and I’m not convinced on the “sexual pervert” claim.

This sounds like what Adrian might have written, as a way of defusing the reaction to his probable “Yes” answer. After all, to many people, even many Christians, Gandhi is one of the greatest heroes of the 20th century, and it would be a real shock to be told he is in hell.

But then Phil turns the tables on Adrian and those who think like him, and gives a true Christian answer to the question:

as Rob Bell insists we don’t know for sure what has happened to Gandhi so be wary of definitive statements as if we are the ones who judge. … God’s grace can reach someone who is a racist, pervert and believes in reincarnation and save them to the uttermost. Whether it has or not, time will tell.

Reigning with Christ: the Millennium in Ephesians?

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A comment on my post Left Behind Preachers led me to an interesting discovery about the Millennium. I put forward some tentative ideas about what this was in my post The Marriage of the Millennium: not William and Kate. In clarifying my thoughts about this I was led to look at Ephesians 2, and find in there what looks like teaching about the Millennium.

The Heavenly ThroneThe main Bible passage about the Millennium is found in Revelation chapter 20. Here is part of it:

I saw thrones on which were seated those who had been given authority to judge. And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded because of their testimony about Jesus and because of the word of God. They had not worshiped the beast or its image and had not received its mark on their foreheads or their hands. They came to life and reigned with Christ a thousand years.

Revelation 20:4 (NIV 2011)

Compare this with what Paul wrote to the Ephesians:

But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5 made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. 6 And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus …

Ephesians 2:4-6 (NIV 2011)

Note the clear parallels here. Believers who were dead are then raised up to life and seated with Christ. In Revelation they are explicitly seated on thrones and reign with Christ. In Ephesians this is only implicit, but the implication should be clear: in biblical times to be seated implied some kind of throne as there were no chairs for common use; and in Ephesians 1:20-22 the risen Christ, seated at God’s right hand, is reigning, and so the ones enthroned with him are reigning with him.

The Ephesians passage is clearly intended to apply to us Christian believers in the current church age. It teaches that we live in two realms at the same time: our visible lives on earth; and our hidden spiritual lives with Christ “in the heavenly realms”.

The passage in Revelation is commonly taken, at least by the more literal-minded evangelicals, to refer to a literal period of 1000 years, after the return of Jesus, when he will reign as king on earth, and believers will reign with him. But the passage doesn’t actually say that. In fact there is no mention in it of the earth. It is only after this, in chapter 21, that we read of the Lamb having his throne on the new earth. Also the thousand year timescale should not be taken too literally, as

With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.

2 Peter 3:8 (NIV 2011)

So, given the close parallels, I don’t see any clear reason to take these two passages as referring to different situations and periods. And if they do refer to the same period, the Millennium is the same as the current church age.

Maybe my discovery is not actually new, and in fact what I am saying is a standard part of amillennialist thinking, i.e. the idea that there is no literal Millennium. But it is new to me.

Now the idea that Christians are reigning with Christ now, in the church age, is a controversial one. Indeed it has been ever since New Testament times when Paul ironically wrote to the Corinthians

Already you have all you want! Already you have become rich! You have begun to reign—and that without us! How I wish that you really had begun to reign so that we also might reign with you!

1 Corinthians 4:8 (NIV 2011)

BreakthroughThe problem for the Corinthians was that they were only grasping one side of the Christian life. They wrongly thought that they were living in the fullness of the life of the kingdom of God. But as it is, in some words which I quoted in a 2006 post here from the book Breakthrough: Discovering the Kingdom by Derek Morphew,

Christians are people who have met Jesus, and to meet Jesus is to meet the end. We have been taken out of this present world and already live by the powers of the age to come. Yet at the same time we live in this world. We are caught in the tension between two worlds, but the power, reality and values of the kingdom determine our lives rather than the standards of this world …

If we could escape from this world and live completely in the kingdom, it would be great. If we could forget about the kingdom and live only in this world, things would be safe. But neither is possible. We will continue to be part of both kingdoms at the same time. Our lives are disturbed in a most wonderfully upsetting way so that we can never see anything in quite the same way again.

Royal wedding day rapture?

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Prince William and Kate MiddletonIt’s not yet eleven o’clock in the morning, and already today six people have found my post The Marriage of the Millennium: not William and Kate with the search string

rapture of jesus’ bride is same day of marriage of prince william and kate middleton.

Does someone know something I don’t? Have we got just a few days to prepare ourselves for the Rapture? No, I don’t think so, although we should be ready just in case:

So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him.

Matthew 24:44 (NIV 2011)

I hope William and Kate will be rapturously happy on their wedding day. No doubt many others will be in raptures of excitement at the spectacle. But I will not be waiting around for any more literal rapture.

Left Behind Preachers

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The RaptureIf there is a Rapture, who will preach to those left behind? Surely not many churches will be empty the following Sunday. Few congregations will have been 100% raptured, and others will very likely join them to find out what is happening.

Archdruid Eileen offers a preview of that situation in at least one church this Sunday, where the pastor is away at Spring Harvest:

Take the people at Drayton’s chapel. In  his absence, his deacon – Mr Obadiah Zebulun – is preaching. He doesn’t often get the chance, and he’s made the most of it.

The pastor of my old church in Essex is currently leading a mission trip to Israel, so the church’s Facebook page announced last night that

Next week is Holy Week and we’re kicking things off tomorrow with a sermon from our very own Easter Bunny

– followed by the name of the lady in question. I give no links here to spare her blushes.

Now I wouldn’t suggest that that godly lady would not qualify for the Rapture. I’m not so sure about the fictional (I presume) Deacon Obadiah Zebulun. But, if there were to be a Rapture, it would surely be most unfortunate if the left behind congregation members, who would be in serious need of spiritual guidance, were instead forced to suffer the lengthy rants and bad exegesis of second rate preachers who were not even born again.

I still wouldn’t want to be raptured – I would prefer to be left behind. Or, more to the point, I hope that when difficult times come none of God’s people are raptured, but all are left behind to minister to unbelievers at the time of their greatest need. We can rely on God to be with us through the worst of times, although that might not protect all of us from suffering and martyrdom. Surely there will be faithful witness to the truth about God right up to the end.

The Marriage of the Millennium: not William and Kate

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It is good to see ElShaddai Edwards blogging again, at He is Sufficient. And he has written an excellent post on the marriage of the millennium.

Prince William and Kate MiddletonNow the marriage of the month is, I suppose, going to be the royal wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton, on 29th April. Here in the UK we are having a public holiday to celebrate – but I will be working, because it is a good day for my current temporary work. I can imagine that some would want to bill this royal event as the marriage of the millennium so far, although I would put forward a different suggestion.

But the wedding ElShaddai is writing about is not that of William and Kate, and it will have no rival in the next thousand years, or indeed forever. It has its similarities: a royal prince marrying a commoner. It is the marriage of Jesus Christ with his church, as described mainly in the Book of Revelation.

ElShaddai links the wedding of the Lamb with teaching on the millennium. For him, the millennium is the time between the announcement of the wedding and the actual ceremony, when the guests are invited and the bride is made ready. For the details read his post.

ElShaddai avoids tying this in with events in the real world. But I suppose this is most easily interpreted with the millennium as the church age, the current age, at the end of which Jesus will return to be with his bride. This would then be a kind of postmillennialism, but without the triumphalism sometimes associated with this teaching.

There is certainly a lot to think about here – but we shouldn’t allow it to distract us too much from our primary task of proclaiming the kingdom of God and inviting people to take their part in the marriage of the millennium.

George Warnock, Latter Rain Pioneer

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Update 5/24/16: I have just heard that George Warnock passed away yesterday, age 98. More to follow.

George H. WarnockI have heard quite a lot, recently as well as longer ago, about the teachings of George Warnock. He is best known for his 1951 book The Feast of Tabernacles, which is featured by Wikipedia among others as one of the main sources for the controversial charismatic teachings about Latter Rain and the Manifest Sons of God.

I had thought of George Warnock as a person from church history. So I was a little surprised but very pleased to discover that he is alive and well and living in his native Canada, or at least he was in 2007 at the age of 90. I also discovered that he has a personal website, which includes complete texts of all his writings, which “may be copied and pasted, reprinted and distributed – without charge.”

It seems from his biography on that site that George has spent most of the 60 years since he wrote his book working as a carpenter. He offers some interesting Reflections Along the Way, which explain why he did not continue to be involved in the Latter Rain and Charismatic movements.

This George is not to be confused with Adrian Warnock’s son, born in 2007, who may in the future take after his father and the older George as a Christian author, but is a bit young for that at the moment. I don’t think the Canadian George is related either to Adrian or to to the Methodist minister blogger Dave Warnock.

The Feast of Tabernacles: The Hope of the ChurchGeorge Warnock’s website includes the text of his 1951 book The Feast of Tabernacles: The Hope of the Church, with a preface by the author from 1980. I have only skimmed the book, and I will not attempt to defend all of Warnock’s exegesis. But in many ways it seems ahead of its time, a forerunner of the charismatic teachings of the last 20 years or so. Here are some extracts:

The Church of Christ is literally filled with carnal, earthly-minded Christians who sit back in ease and self-complacency and await a rapture that will translate them out of the midst of earth’s Great Tribulation at the beginning of the Day of the Lord. To this generation of world-conformers God speaks in no uncertain terms: “Woe unto you that desire the day of the Lord! to what end is it for you? the day of the Lord is darkness, and not light.” (Amos 5:18). In the vast majority of evangelical circles we are taught that any moment all God’s people shall be caught up, raptured, to be with the Lord in the air–to escape the Great Tribulation which soon shall visit the earth. It is not true. The saints shall be “caught up” all right; but “every man in his own order.” (1 Cor. 15:23). What that order is does not concern us right now; but the fact remains, we are nowhere taught that the saints are going to escape the hour of Great Tribulation by way of rapture. …

Sudden cataclysmic judgments shall fall upon the earth, the ungodly shall be “taken” suddenly as in a “snare,” but the righteous shall be “left” in a place of safety. (From Chapter 6, The Blowing of Trumpets)

This is exactly what I have been saying.

Then, apparently outlining the teaching on the Manifest Sons of God:

We are sure of this, however, that the Church is being robbed of her glory in not knowing that there is rapture for her even now, while waiting for Rapture, and there is resurrection here and now while we wait for Resurrection. There is no doubt whatever that God holds many secrets for future revelation concerning the order of events and the nature of the Resurrection. But in this we are confident: before this cherished rapture or resurrection takes place, there is to arise a group of overcomers who shall appropriate even here and now their heritage of Resurrection Life in Jesus Christ. God has placed His only Begotten at His own right hand in the heavenlies, until all his enemies have been placed under His feet. (Ps. 110:1; 1 Cor. 15:25,26.) There He shall remain, in obedience to the Word of the Father, until there ariseth a people who shall go in and possess their heritage in the Spirit, and conquer over all opposing forces of World, Flesh, and Devil. We are not inferring that the saints will go about in glorified bodies. But we are speaking of the saints reaching out and appropriating even here and now in their earthly temples the very Life of Christ, of entering into their heritage in the Spirit, of participating in the Melchizedek priesthood and kingdom, and of living the very spotless, immaculate life of the Son of God Himself in virtue of His abiding presence within. (From Chapter 14, The Feast of His Appearing)

Warnock goes on to suggest that these “overcomers” might be preserved from physical death, but avoids making this a definite teaching. He perhaps gets a bit carried away when he describes how “They shall be completely triumphant over all the powers of darkness that are arrayed against them”. But it seems clear that he is teaching, as I do, that this overcoming life is not for a select few but for any believer who lays hold of it.

I wonder, how many of the people who use the phrases “Latter Rain” and “Manifest Sons of God” as brushes to tar their fellow believers with have actually read books like George Warnock’s? If they did, they might discover that these doctrines are not major demonic deceptions, but good biblical teachings, which may at times have been exaggerated by the over-enthusiastic, but remain important for God’s purposes today.

Election: not to be saved but to save others

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Calvinist and “Reformed” Christians teach that God elects, or chooses, some people (most would hold that this is a small minority of people) to receive his grace, forgiveness and eternal salvation – and that those he decides not to elect have no choice, but are abandoned to the hell that they deserve as punishment for their sins.

Chris Wright : Langham Partnership InternationalChristopher J.H. Wright, also known as The Rev. Dr. Chris Wright, International Director of the Langham Partnership, has a different take on this, in his 2010 book The Mission of God’s People (p. 72):

Election [ie the choosing] of one is not rejection of the rest, but ultimately for their benefit. It is as if a group of trapped cave explorers choose one of their number to squeeze through a narrow flooded passage to get out to the surface and call for help. The point of the choice is not so that she alone gets saved, but that she is able to bring help and equipment to ensure the rest get rescued. “Election” in such a case is an instrumental choice of one for the sake of many.

In the same way, God’s election of Israel is instrumental in God’s mission for all nations. Election needs to be seen as a doctrine of mission, not a calculus for the arithmetic of salvation. If we are to speak of being chosen, of being among God’s elect, it is to say that, like Abraham, we are chosen for the sake of God’s plan that the nations of the world come to enjoy the blessing of Abraham (which is exactly how Paul describes the effect of God’s redemption of Israel through Christ in Galatians 3:14).

Thanks to Mark of Every Tongue for quoting this, and to Jeremy of Till He Comes for linking to Mark’s post.

Indeed! God didn’t choose us Christians to be snatched away to heaven and saved, so that we can gloat as we watch the rest of humanity suffering tribulation on earth and eternal torment in hell. He selected us for a mission – and I use the word in the popular sense of “Mission Impossible” as much as in the Christian jargon sense. That is, God chose us to be members of his team, with the task of rescuing those who are bound for hell and transforming this world into his kingdom.

This, as I wrote yesterday, is the purpose of our salvation. But it goes back further than that: it is the purpose for which God

chose us in [Christ] before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love 5 he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ …

Ephesians 1:4-5 (NIV 2011)

We are called to be his sons (including women as well as men), manifested in this world. I don’t agree with the more extreme aspects of Manifest Sons of God teaching, especially as most of the descriptions of it I can find are from its enemies – although I was interested to read that, in line with what I have written,

The rapture, according to this doctrine, will be of the wicked – not of believers.

Nor do I accept the idea that this is something for only a chosen few. However, I agree with the basic principle behind this teaching, that God is raising up today a task force of believers empowered by the Holy Spirit to make the kingdom of God a reality in this world. This is God’s calling for everyone he has chosen to receive his grace, everyone who confesses Jesus Christ as Lord. Don’t settle for second best!

Salvation is not deliverance from hell

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The furore about Rob Bell’s book Love Wins has drawn a lot of attention to hell. But surely we Christians should be focusing our attention elsewhere. For John Wesley, by Nathaniel Hone, oil on canvas, circa 1766John Wesley was surely right when he wrote (as quoted by John Meunier):

By salvation I mean, not barely, according to the vulgar notion, deliverance from hell, or going to heaven; but a present deliverance from sin, a restoration of the soul to its primitive health, its original purity; a recovery of the divine nature; the renewal of our souls after the image of God, in righteousness and true holiness, in justice, mercy, and truth.

— From John Wesley’s “A Further Appeal to Men of Reason and Religion”

Sadly far too many people still have this “vulgar notion”, coupled with an unbiblical longing for a Rapture to take them quickly away from this world. Our biblical calling is quite different: not just to seek the personal restoration which Wesley writes about, but also to work towards the restoration of our world according to biblical principles.

Evangelical Alliance responds to Rob Bell "Love Wins"

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Rob Bell: Love WinsThe Evangelical Alliance (here in the UK) has just published a response to the publication of Rob Bell’s new book Love Wins. The response is in two parts: a review of the book by Derek Tidball, and a Statement which reads like a press release.

I mentioned this book in my post of a few days ago Heaven, Hell and Bell. I still haven’t read the book. But both the review and the statement seem to be a very sensible take on this controversial issue.

It was interesting to read, in the Statement section of this response, a summary of the conclusions of the Evangelical Alliance’s 2000 book The Nature of Hell. I particularly liked this part of the summary:

absolutist assertions that these and other categories of non-professing people are saved risk being at least as arrogant as absolutist assertions that they are damned. The destiny of such people is God’s to determine, and it is determined by his grace alone.