THE NEW TESTAMENT DOCTRINE OF THE END, by G. R. Beasley-Murray

A Brief Article Summary from Books At a Glance

by Steve West

 

An essential idea in the Old Testament is that God is the sovereign Lord over history, and he is guiding everything to its appointed end. The end is designated as the Day of Jehovah. The New Testament strands of eschatological teaching are not systematically presented, but they stand in continuity with what is said about this Day in the prophets. We can put the main events in the following order: “(I) The Apostasy, Antichrist and the Great Distress, (2) the Parousia, (3) the Resurrection, (4) the Judgment, (5) the Eschatological Kingdom and the Renewed Creation.”

Throughout the NT there is an expectation of an Apostasy before the Parousia. Various NT authors present data about the Antichrist in complementary ways. The Great Distress should be divided into two components: 1. The persecution of believers by the world; 2. The judgment of God upon the persecutors. At the end of this period, the Lord will appear. The forces of Antichrist will be destroyed, but most people in the nations enter the millennial kingdom reign. Gone are the days when scholars could assert that Jesus did not teach that he would return at the end of this age. Between the first and second advents, Christ is still with his people, in the person of the Holy Spirit. He comes to them after the ascension and is with them for the church age, but this does not mean that he will not come to them in a different way at the end of this age. Jesus also said that his contemporaries would see him come in the kingdom and in power—this occurs in the Transfiguration, resurrection, and spread of the gospel. These realities are kingdom realities, pointing to the consummation. Jesus can speak of his coming in terms of special manifestations in the world, but also in terms of his final return. . . .

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