So far in this series I’ve attempted to summarize and describe the current eschatological mood among younger evangelicals in general, and within the fellowship of Calvary Chapel in particular. In the previous post I noted three factors which have impacted the way many of us have formed our eschatology—the rise of New Calvinism, the Biblical Theology movement, and the influence of N.T. Wright. Of course, all three are worthy of book-length treatment, which cannot be provided here. What I hope to do today is offer beginning responses to each one, and encapsulate the kind of observations I find helpful in pursuing a robust and practical end-times expectation.

So let’s get started:

1. New Calvinism isn’t essentially about eschatology at all.

Yes, the New Calvinists write well, and very, very much. Yes, their scholarship in many areas is probably the finest in the evangelical world right now. And yes, they’ve been very convincing to many in regards to their presentation of reformed theology. But we should recognize that these things don’t actually speak to any eschatological issues at all. If it’s the Calvinist part of New Calvinism that draws someone, let’s admit that there’s no eschatology inherent in Calvinism. Certainly amillennialism isn’t an essential part of Reformed soteriology (just ask, say, John MacArthur). And in terms of publishing and scholarship, strength in one area (or even many) does not guarantee accuracy in any given area. All things must be tested, as the Bereans still teach us.

In my experience, the main eschatological arguments currently marshaled by those in the New Calvinism movement center on two issues. First, there is the study of the way the New Testament quotes the Old. What was the Apostles’ hermeneutic (method of interpretation) when they quoted and applied the Old Testament? It is commonly asserted that we can clearly see a method of quotation that points to an eschatological orientation other than dispensationalism. And yet, is it that simple? I don’t think so. On a case by case basis, I find that the eschatological conclusions drawn by the New Calvinists from a given passage often rely as much on prior theological convictions as on anything actually in the text. For instance, see the otherwise genuinely helpful volume Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament edited by D.A. Carson and G.K. Beale. In the passages I’ve perused where the contributors discuss eschatology, I’ve found that the eschatological conclusions often seem hastily reached by assuming the very question involved, and other legitimate eschatological possibilities are not even considered. I apologize for attempting to respond to a large tome in a few sentences, but I’d invite anyone to page through the book see if they don’t reach similar conclusions.

The other major factor impacting eschatological views for the New Calvinists is wrapped up in the literary genre of the book of Revelation. Much is made today of the identification of Revelation as Apocalyptic literature—a kind of writing that flourished in Jewish and Christian circles in the few centuries before and after Christ. We do find texts other than Revelation which sound like Apocalyptic in the scriptures (portions of Daniel, Ezekiel and other Prophetic books, and certain teachings of Jesus) but the majority of what we call Apocalyptic is found outside of Scripture. What this means is that many evangelicals today use a category which is essentially extra-biblical to determine an interpretive framework for Revelation. Of course, we all use some of these techniques for other portions of scripture (for instance, using interpretive strategies for poetry for the poetic portions of scripture). But are we on solid ground to do the same for Revelation? The most direct response to this I’ve read is by Robert Thomas in his commentary on Revelation. Thomas’ basic premise is that we already have a strong contender for identifying Revelation’s genre within the canon of scripture—the genre of Prophecy. Revelation calls itself a prophecy, and it clearly sounds like and draws on the other prophetic books in the canon of scripture. We can watch prophecy fulfilled, interpreted and applied within the scriptures themselves, which seems to beg the question—couldn’t we safely use the interpretive tools for Prophecy which we find within the bible to interpret Revelation, rather than using a category which may or may not have actually guided the writers’ of scripture?

There’s another issue I haven’t yet heard addressed by those who place Revelation into an Apocalyptic framework. As the author, the apostle John clearly claims to have seen and recorded certain visions. Through the book he reports that he was simply watching, listening and writing. Which means that, on the face of it, Revelation sounds the way it does because it was John’s direct way of reporting what he saw and heard. If we are then to understand that he took his manuscript and recrafted it so that his readers would interpret it according to the conventions of Apocalyptic, what do we make of his original visions? I have wished for a seat on a plane next to Dr. Carson. I want to ask him—did John actually see his visions or not? If he did, was God guiding him in how he reported them? Wouldn’t that be determinative for how they were recorded, rather than John’s desire to write within a certain genre?

It seems to me that what we call the Apocalyptic genre might not be much more than non-canonical writers attempting to sound like the more fantastic portions of biblical prophetic writings. The fact is that the bulk (if not all) of the apocalypses we have surviving have been dated after the time of Christ. Doesn’t this point to the strong possibility they were all just non-inspired imitations of the real thing (that is, the prophetic, visionary writings)? It’s not as though we can say that Ezekiel, for instance, was following Apocalyptic genre conventions when he wrote—we can’t be sure anything of the sort existed outside of Scripture. But John, when he began to receive and record his vision, did sound like Ezekiel and Daniel. We have a simple explanation for all this. The same God was showing him the same kind of visions the older writers had seen, and the same Spirit was inspiring his recording of the visions. By his own testimony he was operating in the prophetic tradition (as the opening of his letter states, see 1:3). If these observations are accurate, it would mean that we cannot use the extra-biblical category of Apocalyptic to control our reading of Revelation, but must instead use the intra-canonical framework and patterns of fulfillment we see within and between the testaments. And this is precisely the way Revelation has been read by those coming to more dispensational types of eschatologies.

2. Biblical Theology doesn’t necessarily point in one eschatological direction or the other.

When it comes to Biblical Theology, we can all acknowledge the strength in any approach that teaches the full sweep of revelation (“the full counsel of God”). The main issue for eschatology, however, is to see that, just like Reformed theology per se doesn’t necessarily point in any particular eschatological direction, neither does a “biblical-theological” approach to the bible. It is simply not true that just by following the bible’s story line, you will see that the Rapture is nonsense, or that Jesus (and by extension, his body the church) is the True Israel, or that the Millennium is symbolic. This is because Eschatology is essentially a systematic discipline. In other words—we must do our biblical theology, but at the end of the day we have to put a bunch of disparate pieces together to form a coherent view of how the end of history will roll out. The strength of starting with a “through the whole bible” method is that we have a concrete way to check our eschatological answers. Do your conclusions do justice to the whole sweep of God’s story? Do they sit as well with the Jeremiah as they do with the Olivet discourse? Do they account for the promise to Abraham and the explanations of Paul? Do they all tie together, through Jesus, in John’s Revelation? Those are the questions that must be answered, and merely asserting that Jesus fulfilled all the prophecies in his first coming while you move through the bible simply isn’t adequate.

We must face the hard work of determining what exactly Jesus accomplished in his first coming, and what he left yet to be accomplished. Here we must use the apostolic writings (in particular) as our guide. When I felt overwhelmed by questions about the end times I couldn’t seem to answer, I did exactly this. I took several months to read the whole bible, with only one objective: get my eschatology straight. By the time I had reached Jeremiah 33:24-25 (“Have you not considered what these people have spoken, saying, ‘The two families which the LORD has chosen, He has also cast them off’? Thus they have despised My people, as if they should no more be a nation before them. Thus says the LORD: ‘If My covenant is not with day and night, and if I have not appointed the ordinances of heaven and earth, then I will cast away the descendants of Jacob and David My servant, so that I will not take any of his descendants to be rulers over the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. For I will cause their captives to return, and will have mercy on them.’”), it was becoming clear to me that I needed to take Israel’s distinctive part in the plan of God seriously. And when I saw the apostles asking Jesus when he’d restore the kingdom to Israel in Acts 1:6—after they had spent years with him, been taught for 40 days about the kingdom, and had their understanding opened to comprehend the scriptures—I felt I was hearing a compelling case. Instead of finding I needed to abandon what I had been taught from my youth I came away more convinced than ever about some of the core convictions I held in that area. I saw that the Apostles finished their earthly time with Christ still waiting for the final fulfillment of all the prophetic promises. Most of all, through the New testament I heard a strong, clear call to be watchful and waiting for the return of Christ, which could break into world history at any moment. A thoroughly worked out Biblical Theology drove me to expect the Rapture and the Millennium, not to discard them from my thinking.

3. N.T. Wright is not an authority on eschatology.

N.T. Wright is almost universally respected as a foremost scholar on the historicity of the resurrection. He has evidently done brilliant work in this area. He is less well accepted a scholar of Pauline theology. He has written huge books in the field, and his views have received push back from many other scholars. But I am aware of no one among his academic peers who regards him as particularly knowledgeable in matters of eschatology. A survey of his work in the subject reveals why. Much of his thinking on the topic is contained in his book Surprised by Hope. The basic argument of the book can be summed up in a sentence: Christians erroneously think they are going to go to heaven when they die and spend forever there with God, but the bible teaches a physical new heavens and new earth in which we will live with new bodies. Now, it should be obvious that this is nothing more than the main-stream view among evangelicals, as well as what Calvary pastors have taught every time they’ve come to the end of Revelation. Wright, however, offers it as a fresh, groundbreaking approach, and proceeds to use this insight to vigorously deride views like the expectation of an imminent rapture.

But of course, the understanding of the physicality of the eternal state doesn’t necessarily have any bearing at all on the timing of eschatological events like the Rapture. It takes more to build a biblical case than to label a group of people “escapists” and then to point out that we’re waiting for a renewed earth. Again, the exegetical homework must be done—the hard work of interpreting text after text in light of the whole sweep of revelation.

In fact, Craig Blaising has shown that since the apostles taught that we should expect a physical fulfillment of prophecies like Revelation 21 and Romans 8 (as Wright also shows), we have every reason to go back and examine all the prophecies in scripture to look for similar physical (might we even say “literal”) fulfillments of all that has been written. In his contribution to the book Three Views on the Millennium and Beyond, Blaising details how most eschatological views (especially concerning the teaching about the Millennium) can be categorized by two models: Spiritual Vision or New Creation. The Spiritual Vision models emphasize that the eternal state will basically be spiritual in terms of a non-physical “vision of God” type of blissful existence. The New Creation models, like the one Wright champions, expect an eternal physical existence within a perfected, cleansed creation, which is essentially continuous with our present existence. Blaising’s helpful insight is that the very view which Wright puts forward leads us to interpret scripture in such a way that we would most naturally arrive at the eschatological views which Wright himself argues against. In other words, waiting for the new earth is right in line with waiting for the Rapture.

Of course, other things Wright mentions might also weigh heavily on the minds of younger evangelicals. For instance, he links expectation of the Rapture with mistreatment of the environment. Many others have said this same thing. There is a quick reply to this, and it’s to note that there is no need to correlate the two at all. In fact, the best way to ensure creation care is not to root our stewardship of the earth in our eschatology at all, but in our doctrine of creation. We are to care for the earth because it is God’s gift to us and we’re made in his image to cultivate it.

So how could we bring this to helpful end? If my observations are accurate, it means that:

• The soteriological questions relating to Reformed theology do not bear on eschatology.
• Patterns of Old Testament quotation and application in the New must be examined on a case by case basis.
• The genre of Revelation cannot be a deciding factor in these discussions, because no decisive case can be made that it should not be read as we read the other prophetic writings.
• The consistent application of the principles of Biblical theology can naturally lead to the recognition that the promise of Christ’s coming and new creation will be physically fulfilled. And this opens up the possibility that all the promises that point to the physical fulfillment of a restored kingdom centered in geo-ethnic Israel will also be fulfilled.

In other words, the whole sweep of the story of redemption, including the hope of the new earth, does not dismantle Calvary’s eschatology. It may actually point directly to it.

Finally, as Andy Deane recently noted on this site, we should also acknowledge that these questions are down-stream from the essentials of the Gospel. Good brothers and sisters, who will all roam the New Earth together, disagree on these things. We need our love to be strong as we work on these things together.

However, to the extent that they affect our understanding of the times we live in, and the sense of urgency and expectation that is incumbent upon us, eschatological issues are worth discussing and collaborating on for greater clarity. The more clearly we see the picture we’ve been given, the more faithfully we can obey the words of our Lord: “Watch therefore, for you do not know when the master of the house is coming—in the evening, at midnight, at the crowing of the rooster, or in the morning—lest, coming suddenly, he find you sleeping. And what I say to you, I say to all: Watch!”

In my last post I noted the beginning of a shift in the way younger evangelicals, and specifically those connected with Calvary Chapel, viewed eschatological issues. Today, let’s look at three important factors which seem to be influencing a move away from a dispensational type of eschatology:

1. The influence of “the New Calvinism” and the resurgence of reformed theology among younger evangelicals.

Theological discussion seems to swing on a pendulum. When Calvary Chapel was new, the prevailing energy in many places (at least in the American context) was behind something closer to what Calvary pastors taught. This included both our soteriological stance (our teachings regarding how someone is saved) and our eschatological stance. In soteriology Calvary tended to be non-Calvinist at least, if not espousing the category of full-fledged Arminianism. It should be said that it stood in the center of what was new and “happening” theologically. The last fifteen years or so have seen a shift in Western Evangelicalism. The rise of many excellent pastors and university professors who teach from a Calvinistic framework has led to a resurgence of reformed theology among younger evangelicals. Partly this seems to have been a response to the rise of movements like the Emergent Church—the New Calvinists played an essential role in championing a return to serious, faithful, and vibrant bible reading and mission. Many of us under 40 have drunk deeply from the wells they uncovered, both old and new—from early Reformed and Puritan works to the work of John Piper and the Gospel Coalition. Their ministry has been so effective and prolific that Reformed theology has amassed a large following among younger Americans who wish to take the bible seriously (something, it must be said, that historically has been the hallmark of young people associated with Calvary Chapel).

One of the less-discussed results of this resurgence is the shift in many people’s eschatological views that resulted from espousing Reformed soteriology. Since many (though certainly not all) of the teachers in the New Calvinist movement hold an eschatology other than dispensationalism, their views on the end times seem to become part of the package—if you like their teachings in other areas, why not go with their end-times views?

Of course, part of the draw of the New Calvinism is the excellent scholarship and writing they have been doing in the last 20 years or so. Pick up any of the recent commentaries written at a middle or advanced level, and chances are a reformed thinker wrote it. And their output of books, articles, and other media is impressive, and collated on some of the best websites around. When you have a question, it’s usually a good move to check out what they’ve collected. You’re probably going to find a thought-out, well-documented, well presented, up-to-date, and thoroughly biblical answer. For those of us who were making our way through the early years of bible study, it was sometimes hard to argue with a lot of what they had to say.

2. The strength of the Biblical Theology movement and focus on the story line of the canon of scripture.

This point is connected to the rise of New Calvinism, but not identical with it. Many of the scholars who are active in current Reformed circles champion a method of biblical interpretation that seeks to do justice to the story-line of the scriptures as a whole, interpreting the Bible as the unfolding revelation of God himself and his plan of redemption. The term used to refer to this discipline is Biblical Theology, to distinguish it from Systematic Theology. In Biblical Theology, we seek to understand the message of salvation by learning and telling the story the bible tells—from Creation to New Creation. We also study the unique contributions each book of the canon makes to the scriptures as a whole, and trace the main themes of scriptures through Genesis all the way to Revelation. Not only does this lead to a thorough and practical understanding of the whole bible, it presents a way of articulating biblical truth that is tailor-made for our generation of westerners, who are largely ignorant of anything scripture teaches. You’ve got to start at the beginning—one God, who made absolutely everything—if the Gospel’s going to make sense.

Again, the scholarship here is admirable. To hear men like D.A. Carson and Graeme Goldsworthy tie the bible together back and forth across the whole of revelation has been, for some of us, massively helpful. Personally I have devoured countless hours of Carson’s teaching, and have only been helped and deepened by it.

Eschatology is more directly affected by the Biblical Theology movement than by the New Calvinism, since Biblical Theology clearly aims to both arrive at and describe the end of the story. This is significant for our discussion because, as is true of New Calvinism, many of the teachers in this vain hold a non-dispensational eschatology. The result seems to have been that many younger evangelicals have come to think that a focus on the story line of scripture necessarily entails a certain view of eschatology.

3. The influence and popularity of N.T. Wright.

British New Testament scholar N.T. Wright has assumed a particular prominence in eschatological discussions among younger evangelicals. Wright’s focus is similar to those in the biblical theology movement, and we might simply include him in the second point, but he is so frequently mentioned in discussions of eschatology that he bears individual mention here. Though most of Wright’s work has not focused specifically on eschatology, he has written and spoken on the subject. If you’ve heard or read any of that material, you know that he’s been a particularly sharp critic of any eschatological system which includes the distinctives we noted in the first post, especially the idea of a rapture. As a sign of Wright’s influence, it’s not uncommon to hear someone simply cite his name as a reason why they no longer believe in, for example, an imminent coming of Christ or his thousand-year reign on earth.

Moving Forward in This Climate

Of course we might say more, but for those of us who’ve been working out our theology in the last couple of decades, these factors account for a large part our theological climate. I include myself in this group—I grew up after the early days of Calvary (born in 1978), and I’ve swam at length in the waters fed by the streams of the New Calvinism and the Biblical Theology movement. In other words, to all of you younger evangelicals who feel like you can’t hang with prophecy charts and A Thief in the Night, I feel your pain.

And yet…

My own experience is that, as much as I have benefited from the teachings of many of those I mentioned above, I haven’t been convinced by their eschatological conclusions. In my final post I will attempt to explain why.

I grew up in Calvary Chapels. From my infant days in Calvary Anaheim to my formative years (and ever since) at Calvary Philly, I know the experience of growing up around the influences of the Jesus Movement. One of the marks of the faith of my parents’ generation was their outlook on the return of Christ—it was happening. And soon. Before I had a theological position on much of anything else, I had an eschatology, without even knowing what one was. We were getting raptured. At any time. And that’s all there was to it. (Though I do remember my mother speaking to me about not receiving the mark of the beast, which later led me to wonder if she had ever been a post-tribulationist.)

I would bet that experience is similar to many under 40 in our fellowship of churches. Things like prophecy charts and rapture movies were standard fare for many of us. And if you’re from that scene, you also know that in the last decade or so, lots of people seem to struggle with a certain “contempt of familiarity” when it comes to eschatology—especially the kind championed around Calvary circles. Those prophecy charts that held our early-adolescent attention slowly became jokes for blog posts and seminary classes. We could start to roll our eyes when our parents talked about the rapture. We might hear younger leaders actively, even astutely, teach in opposition to the eschatological views held by the original leaders and church planters among us. It may even come to seem like an inevitable, quickening move away from that “old” way of seeing things is underway.

But I have come to the conclusion that we need to stop and seriously look at all of this in the way we were taught—with rigorous bible study that courageously examines and communicates what we find in the pages of scripture. And in that spirit, I offer this beginning appraisal of the current state of eschatological expectation among our churches:

Where Calvary Has Traditionally Stood

In the decades since the hippies streamed into the chapel at Costa Mesa, Calvary Chapel has had several doctrinal emphases that marked it as a fellowship of churches. Among the more prominent in this mix was our eschatology (our teachings about the end times)—which has been consistently dispensational in the pre-tribulational vein. Of course, as with all areas of theology, there are varieties of different views that fall under this umbrella, but the defining factors of Calvary’s eschatology (the “distinctives,” if you will) have been:

• Practicing a kind of consistent biblical interpretation that leads one to expect what has been called literal fulfillment of prophecies
• Recognition of a distinction between Israel (the ethnic, biological descendants of Jacob) and the body of believers recognized in the New Testament as “the church”
• Expectation of a coming time of trouble on the earth, as defined by Daniel—7 years total in which will occur the fulfillment of the prophecies in the book of Revelation (the “tribulation”)
• Expectation of a rescue (before that time period) for the believing church currently on the earth when it begins—which could happen at any time, and therefore is described as imminent (the “rapture”)
• Expectation of the visible (re)appearing of Christ in the sky, at which time he will descend to earth and begin governing the entire world, a time period which will last for a 1000 years (the “millennium”)
• After this 1000 year time period, expectation of a final rebellion led by Satan, the final judgment before God’s throne, and the ushering in of a new created order, described as “a new heavens an a new earth”

In the past few years, however, I think we can all attest that this way of seeing the eschatological picture has lost some steam. You can find this situation both in the larger evangelical world in general, and also sometimes in our own fellowship of churches. Chief in these discussions are many younger brothers and sisters, including some younger leaders that are arising in Calvary Chapel, as well as some who’ve planted churches which are not now “officially” part of the Calvary fellowship of churches, but still orbit in similar circles, especially because of so many shared relationships.

Thinking through the causes and implications of this shift requires more space than a single blog post allows, so in my next post I’ll begin to examine a few of the more important reasons for why these changes have taken place, and in a third post I’ll (attempt to) offer some constructive, forward-looking responses.

When I am forced to think about the idea of relevance, I always find my mind drawn back to one pivotal passage in Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians. Paul has a bunch of problems to address with this church, but first, he takes time in his letter to remind them of an important foundational fact. He wants them to remember the way he brought the message of Christ to their city, and the way he carried on his ministry as the church was being formed.

The passage begins in chapter one verse 17 and stretches to the end of chapter two. You might say that the “beating heart” of the passage is in chapter 2:1-5. You could trace Paul’s argument this way:

• Christ sent me to preach the gospel, but not with a certain way of speaking that would have been recognized as “wise”—because that would have robbed the cross itself of its power… (1:17)
• The fact is that the message about Jesus being killed by crucifixion is really a laughable idea to everyone (especially those who think they have something to be proud of in this world) everyone, that is, except those it’s saving. (1:18-25)
• Let’s be honest, that’s why your church isn’t made up of the most powerful, esteemed people, but of people the world doesn’t think much of. God gets all the glory this way. (1:26-31)
• You’ll remember that my method of preaching the gospel in Corinth was right in line with these truths: I chose to avoid the kinds of presentation that would have earned me accolades in your city. Why? Because we wanted you to experience the power of God, and not human power. (2:1-5)
• Don’t let that make you think we haven’t got profound words, or real power to work with. We have the very depths and power of God given to us by the Holy Spirit. Those who are truly spiritual understand and receive those things. (2:6-13)

What strikes me here is that Paul is markedly unconcerned about the relevance of his message, the power of what he brings to their city, and their need for what he proclaims. He simply assumes all these things. In fact, he was so confident of the power of God in the gospel that his number one concern is that they don’t miss the awesome power available to them in favor of a lesser, cheaper power. As he moved through Corinth preaching, he was continually amazed by their susceptibility to be moved and wowed by what humans can produce. There’s every reason to think that they specifically loved certain kinds of speaking styles and the charismatic personalities that could hold crowds spellbound with their oration. If you wanted a hearing in Corinth, you had to be a great speaker—that’s what was hot. That’s who had the crowds and held the sway.

Now, the apostle had every good reason to want crowds. As a preacher of the gospel, he wanted more people saved, not less; he wanted as many people as possible to come to know Christ. But according to this passage in 1 Corinthians, Paul understood that the best way to reach as many people as possible with the power of God in the gospel was not to access the same avenues of crowd-gathering that were already working in Corinth. There was something unique about his message which simply could not be spread that way.

What was the issue for Paul? It was this: the nature of how God had chosen to reveal his love, pay for sin, and redeem the world is so contrary to the way humans normally think, that it strikes them as stupid, or even offensive (1:23). It tends to drive away, on the first blush, those who have succeeded in gaining this world’s currencies (wealth, power, beauty) for their own use (1:26). In that way, it subverts and defies the reigning culture wherever and whenever it is accepted (1:27-28). So, while God cares for the beautiful and powerful, he didn’t choose to save them through the power of what they love. That is, he didn’t honor their attempts to overcome the curse of Genesis 3 (through their own ability to feign unblemished immortal sovereignty) by sending a man dealing in the same currencies. Jesus wasn’t wealthy, beautiful or powerful by the standards of his day. If he had come that way it would have simply ratified humanity’s quest to avoid God’s verdict on sin, and justified their self-glorification forever. God wouldn’t have it (1:29).

But it wasn’t simply that God wouldn’t allow these fallen, selfish humans to succeed in eternal self-glorification, it was that to do so would have been unloving for him. It would have been to allow humans to settle for a small and weak counterfeit to true power, wealth and beauty. Because even at its smallest, weakest, and poorest, God’s power surpasses human power, God’s beauty surpasses human beauty.

And we weren’t made to bear our own image, or our own glory, but his. Anything less is degrading to men and women. God is too loving to let us settle for that. So he sent his Son, who came among us a decidedly un-enticing choice for any who had bought into thinking so prevalent in Paul’s Corinth. Normal looks. Normal job. Normal out-of-the-way small town part of the world. Nothing special. And then he died in a way that any self-respecting Roman citizen wouldn’t have had admiration for. The whole thing is just an embarrassing mess.

All of this means that when Paul had to go to Corinth to preach this message, he knew that he faced an uphill battle. But he wasn’t worried; He knew that all this apparent weakness was stronger than the strongest thing anyone in the city can put together—because it was truly God’s way of working in the world. He knew that the power to draw crowds and impress people in the one way they expected to be impressed is too small for what he brought.

And more importantly, he knew that to operate according to Corinthian rules wouldn’t just be to settle for something smaller than what God wants; it would actually have been much worse. There’s an even greater danger—if Paul were to used these methods, he says, he would empty the Gospel of its power. You’d have nothing left. It’s right there in 1 Corinthians 1:17 and 2:1-5. Evidently (and this is so key for those of us wondering about relevance today) the very methods used by the non-believers in Corinth to promote their messages were so antithetical to the nature of the message of the weakness of the crucified Messiah, that to use them would have been to alter the content of Paul’s message. The thing God was trying to get across to us in the life and death and resurrection of Christ would not have come through the medium of the Corinthian way unscathed.

To be right up front: “to glam-up” the crucified Jesus, so that he could be presented in an attractive way to attractive people, would have been to present something other than what was actually presented to us that Friday on the cross.

This is why talk of relevance makes me think of 1 Corinthians. In this letter we have a stark warning we simply can’t ignore if we want to minster in “the Spirit and power” Paul spoke of. We can’t assume that because we have good motives, any method will suffice to serve our purpose. Furthermore, it is not enough to have good motives and trust those to purify our methods. Instead, it is imperative that we who seek to spread the message of Christ examine our methods in light of the scriptures. Sustained reflection on God’s methods in the incarnation and subsequent apostolic preaching of Christ is necessary if we want to avoid making our message powerless.

There’s one more especially pointed application, and it should most acutely search those of us who have the interest and ability in doing the very things Christians often call “relevant.” These are the things which our culture is particularly good at and finds particularly attractive. In the church world this (obviously) applies to the way we use music and stage shows in church, the way pastors speak, the way they present themselves in front of the church, and how they portray themselves with social media. These things, done in certain “culturally relevant” ways, are the quickest avenues to gaining large audiences and respect in our culture. Moving music, visually engaging stage presentations, photographic or cinematic beauty spread through social media are exactly how entertainers and communicators of all messages access people in our modern western culture. If they’re good, they work, it’s that simple.

The key application from 1 Corinthians is to realize that good motives don’t automatically purify these methods. And the very methods that are inherently powerful for a culture are the methods we should be most suspicious of. It is not that we can know right off the bat that we shouldn’t use them, but based on Paul’s inspired thinking, they are the methods we should be slowest to adopt, and use most sparingly, and probably avoid altogether. Because when they “work” (crowds are drawn, people are moved) we have the most to be doubtful of. Could we have plugged any words into that song and still brought people to tears? Could this movie or light show or speech transmit gospel-less content and still bring people back next week? How can we know?

More importantly, we must ask ourselves in these situations, with all this cultural relevance, were people able to really grasp the heart of the message of a messiah crucified in shameful weakness? Did they sense how offensive God’s method of saving us is to our pride? Did they sense the part Paul calls foolishness?

If our methods obscure this part of the gospel, they obscure the gospel itself. If they operate with power people can understand and admire, there is a good chance they operate without “the power of God unto salvation.”

Maybe we can sum this all up like this: If we seek relevance we may end up without God’s power. If we seek to know and minster in God’s power, we will end up with the kind of relevance that God’s very Spirit supplies.

“Do you think finite sins deserve eternal punishment? How can that be fair?”

It’s a common question we may hear when we’re seeking to understand or discuss the nature of God’s wrath as it’s described in the Bible. And on the surface, it presents a difficult problem. After all, if you commit sin for a period of, say, eighty years, does it seem fair to be sentenced to an eternity of punishment? When stated this way, we might feel there is some sort of disparity. It’s hard to image a just God making this sort of mistake. In fact, it might seem to get worse when we think of each sin individually…maybe the sin lasted a year, or a day, or just a few minutes. How could it merit punishment forever?

And yet, that’s what the Bible does teach about the nature of God’s wrath on those who die in their sins. It’s a tragic, horrifying truth to try to contemplate, but it is the case.

So, what gives? Is God unfair?

Two things help when trying to think this through. First, it helps to ask questions about how we determine what a “fair” punishment is in the first place. Second, it helps to think about the assumptions we might be making about the “eternal” or “temporary” nature of both humans and their sins.

So, when we ask, “Do finite sins deserve infinite punishment?”–we should realize that we first need to answer the question of how someone would assign punishment to a crime at all. Even on a purely human level, do we assign length of punishment to a crime based on how long it took to commit the crime? The answer is generally no. If a murder took 5 minutes to commit, the time factor does not weigh in to the length of punishment. Imagine the trial of someone who spent 5 years masterminding a plot to steal $100,000, and someone who killed several people in 10 minutes of rage. Which one would receive a more severe punishment?

So we see that the length of time it takes to commit a crime, or a sin, is not really something that is taken into account when we think of punishment.

How should we weigh evil acts, then? The answer typically has to do with a mix of the amount of evil committed (money stolen, property damaged, lives disrupted or taken, pain caused), the amount of deliberateness behind the evil (time spent planning, amount of intent to do harm), and some other factors, like the future danger to a society the individual presents. The crucial idea to see here is that even our court systems understand that human acts have consequences beyond the actual committing of the crime. The evil caused does not stop when the criminal stops committing the evil.

So we have a compounding effect of evil to take into account when we assess punishment to criminals. If someone hurt several people badly enough to disable them, we have on our hands effects of evil which will last for the rest of their lives. Would it be unfair to add together the remaining years of each injured person’s life to come up with a “fair” number of years the criminal should be punished? (We should see that we will quickly run out of years left for the criminal, so that he or she wouldn’t even be able to serve the “full” sentence, thinking this way.)

And it gets worse. How would we calculate the “fair” amount of punishment for someone like Adolph Hitler? The amount of evil he committed would need to be assessed over the scale of every life he affected, his amount of malice and conscious intent, and how lasting the effects of his sin were. It boggles the mind. Could he receive a sentence that was “fair” which he could serve in his lifetime?

Secondly, when we ask the question, “”Do finite sins deserve infinite punishment?”–we should notice the underlying assumptions about humans, and our relationship to eternity, that we may need to reexamine. Specifically, we need to contemplate three issues of our own interaction with eternity:

1. The eternal nature of humans.
2. The eternal significance of the things humans do.
3. The eternal authority humans are under.

Let’s look at each one individually.

1. The eternal nature of humans: We’re finite in terms of size, but in terms of time, are we finite, or eternal? The answer the Bible gives is that we are eternal. Humans, by nature, are made in the image of the eternal God, which means that once we come into existence, we never pass out of existence. To exist forever is in the very fabric of what it means to be human. In other words, and this is very helpful to say when we discuss these kinds of things, we are eternal beings.

So when a human commits a sin, it is a sin committed by an eternal being. A new question emerges: Can an eternal being commit a finite sin?

2. The eternal significance of the things human do: Do our acts have temporary, or eternal significance? This returns to an idea discussed above–how long do the effects of our sin last? Now, I may break someone’s arm, and it may heal in six weeks. We could say the effects of my sin lasted six weeks. In one sense that’s true. But in another sense it’s not true at all. How long do the memories of that sin last? How long does the animosity between me and the injured person last? And to get more to the point: once I’ve broken the arm, can I ever undo that action? Is there a way I can make it so I didn’t do it at all? This is why the idea of “significance” is so helpful. I may commit an act whose effects go away after some time, but I can never change the universe so that the act didn’t happen. The fact that I broke the arm is an eternal fact. There will never be a time when I did not break that arm.

Further, think about things we do whose effects don’t go away. What if I hurt someone and it cost them their arm? They will live for the rest of their life maimed by what I did. And since we each only live one life, they will never get to live a full life with both arms. In other words, what I did effects them eternally. There will never be a reality in which they lived a full life with two arms.

Let’s keep going. If I murder someone, think of the eternal results of what I’ve done. For all eternity, the length of their earthly life will have been shortened, by me. They will never get to relive an earthly life which lasts its full course.

These may seem like extreme cases, but once you realize the connection between the fact that we only have one life to live, and that we can not change the past once we’ve lived it, you realize that literally everything we do has eternal significance. Once I say, think, or do something, it, and all its effects, can never be undone. they are just there, forever. I think we’ve answered the next pertinent question: Can an eternal being commit any act that is not eternal in significance?

3. The eternal authority humans are under: Against whom do we sin, when we sin? This is probably the most common way of connecting eternity to our sins. We don’t simply sin against each other–we sin against an infinite, eternal God, who gave us existence and has absolute right to rule over us. Not only that, but He’s shown Himself to be infinitely, eternally loving as well, so when we sin, we sin again someone with both infinite authority and infinite love. We offend infinite majesty. Here’s another question: Can an eternal being commit a finite sin against infinite love and authority?

I think adding the rest of what we’ve seen to this helps even further: Here we are, eternal creatures, given the gift of true existence with eternal significance, so that all we are and all we do has meaning forever. We’re under the infinitely loving authority of our creator as well, and given the ability to act out, in truly significant ways, our desires and intentions. Everything we do, then, has eternity all over it. There’s nothing about us that doesn’t matter, forever.

And when we sin, we sin eternally. We’re eternal beings committing eternally significant sins against an eternal authority.

When seen in this light, I’m not sure how we could see anything other than eternal consequences as appropriate. Eternal punishment speaks to the high calling and intention of God for Man, and the amazing level of significance he has gifted to us. To whom much is given, much is required.

And doesn’t this bring one more thing into glorious light? The grace of God in Jesus Christ is the kind of grace that comes to us–these eternally guilty beings–and actually has the power to change what we never could. Yes, there will never be a time when I did not sin, but by the death and resurrection of Christ I can be given the status of One who never did. When I am united to Him by faith, I find my past covered and atoned for, and what’s left is for me to live out an eternally significant life of righteousness. This is staggering. If anything, contemplating the reality of what Hell teaches us should make us be more in awe of what Jesus truly accomplished. What a massive, unimaginable salvation is offered to us. God is that good.