BOOKS, FAITH, WORLD & MORE

NOT READING THE FUTURE FROM THE BIBLE
Evangelicals Became Israel’s Best Friend and of In God’s Time: The Bible and the Future

Daniel Hertzler

On the Road to Armageddon: How Evangelicals Became Israel’s Best Friend by Timothy P. Weber. Baker Academic, 2004.

In God’s Time: The Bible and the Future by Craig C. Hill. Eerdmans, 2002.

These books are complementary and may well be read in tandem. The first recounts the history of dispensationalism from Darby to the Left Behind novels. The second offers an alternative to the dispensationalist scheme of biblical interpretation.

Although a premillenial view of last things has been present in the church for centuries, the dispensational version was developed in the nineteenth century by John Nelson Darby, a leader among the Plymouth Brethren, a break-off group from the Church of England. Darby devised a theory which proposed that God has been dealing with his people through various "dispensations."

As popularized in North America by C. I. Scofield, a dispensation was a period of time during which God tested humanity by a specific revelation of the divine will. In each era humankind failed to fulfill this responsibility. This in turn led to the beginning of a new dispensation in which God tried again. "In short, dispensationalism was an intricate system that tried to explain the stages in God’s redemption plan for the universe" (20).

The failure of mankind to respond adequately to the love and mercy of God is not hard to document. Less convincing are the intricate and detailed interpretation of world events and the predictions about what should be expected to happen. Darby perceived that the Jews are the people who most interest God and that the church would be only an interlude before the end-times action should begin.

An important element in the Darby scheme is "the secret, any-moment, pretribulational rapture of the church" (23). In this theory, faithful Christians would be taken away while the less faithful, the unbelievers, and Jews would be left behind. This is the scheme on which the Left Behind novels are based.

The dispensationalist

approach to the Bible proved to be enormously flexible over time: while never deviating from their basic expectations, dispensationalists were able to make adjustments when they had to to keep their interpretation of history moving in the right direction. (43)

Dispensationalists have held a pessimistic view of history: Things should be expected to get worse, and since God—not they—is in charge, there is nothing they can do about it. Thus each new development in the ways of evil is reassuring—it is a sign of the approaching end. Efforts to save the environment or to mediate conflicts are not on the dispensationalist agenda.

Since the Jews figure prominently in their theory, dispensationalists need to have a position on the Jews. They have engaged in Jewish evangelism, although not always with results. "In the long run, it seems, results were not always the primary concern. The dispensationalist mission to the Jews had symbolic value too" (128).

Two modern developments have been of interest to them, one positive, the other negative. The positive one has been the emergence of the modern state of Israel in 1948, identified by Weber as "the mother lode of prophetic fulfillment" (156). The details never quite fit dispensationalist expectations. But "without a restored Israel, there could be no antichrist, no great tribulation, no Armageddon, and no triumphant second coming of Jesus" (155).

So dispensationalists have supported Israel all the way. Chapters 6, 8, and 9 of Weber’s work describe happenings in Israel and how dispensationalists are involved. Chapter 7 discusses the Left Behind novels and several dispensationalist changes of tactics.

The negative development has been the demise of the Soviet Union. Since the Soviets were to be key players in the threat to Israel bringing on the Armageddon, they had to change the subject. "They were flexible, able to adjust when necessary, regroup and move ahead" (203). Weber shows that the development of the American Christian right has been fostered by dispensationalists.

They are not friendly toward efforts to promote peace in the Middle East. According to their view, "Peace is nowhere prophesied for the Middle East until Jesus comes and brings it himself." Anyone who presses the Israelis to give up land to promote peace "is ignoring or defying God’s plan for the end of the age" (267).

Can one be a "Bible-believing Christian" without being a fundamentalist? Craig C. Hill states his position near the end of his book: "As a modern, scientifically oriented person who also prays, I can well understand what it is like to stand with a foot on each side, shifting my weight between them" (189). He wishes to discuss eschatological issues, and these inevitably involve biblical interpretation, so his development covers both of these subjects throughout.

Hill regularly shares his own experience, which adds a dose of reality to the book. For example, he confesses that he was a "teenage fundamentalist" (13). Of course it is well-known that some fundamentalists have rejected biblical religion altogether, so Hill’s pilgrimage is of some interest.

He takes his stand on the resurrection of Jesus and proposes that with that as a foundation, problems in eschatology can be sorted out. Included is the recognition that early Christians had a "limited view of the cosmos, a limited view of human (much less of geological) history" (8) and "that most of us no longer hold literally to the biblical account of creation (six days and all that)" (9).

He calls for inductive rather than deductive Bible study and recalls a time when he noticed differences between accounts of the same story in Matthew and Luke. When he asked one of his "elders" what he did with such a problem, the elder answered, "I just try not to think about it" (14). Hill was determined to do better than that.

His solution to prophetic and apocalyptic conundrums is familiar to many who have thought about these issues. Biblical prophecy, Hill observes, "as a whole is more concerned with influencing the present than with revealing the future" (33). Also, he notes that not all the "prophetic expectations" were fulfilled. "The prophetic vision appears to have been more impressionistic than cartographic, more a sketch and less a photograph than is usually imagined" (42).

In a brief appendix, he comments on the Left Behind novels and concludes that this "most popular Christian eschatology is unscriptural. . . . At the end of all their theorizing and systematizing, it is the Bible itself, this wonderfully diverse and complex witness to God and Christ, that is left behind" (207).

Hill’s approach to apocalyptic material is to survey history and apocalyptic literature and then focus particularly on Daniel and Revelation. In contrast to "popular writers" who see these books as "principally books of historical foresight" he would go with those who look into them for "theological insight" (95). For this it is necessary to interpret them "within the context of the apocalyptic tradition which so clearly influenced them" (96).

He does not see a need for Christians today to expect the literal fulfillment of the images in the book of Revelation. Rather, "If anything is certain about Jesus, it is his conviction that God would someday be victorious over the powers of evil and death" (169).

In his final chapter, Hill addresses "the tension between religious and scientific views of reality" (177). This tension, he asserts, has always been present. As an example he notes the difference between "future" and "realized" eschatology. In a graphic on page 180, he portrays the perspective of the gospel of Mark which, he suggests, emphasizes a future-oriented eschatology and the gospel of John, which tends toward a realized eschatology. As for Paul, Hill finds him between the two. "Within the space occupied by Christianity, there is tension between God’s transcendence on the left side and God’s immanence on the right" (187).

If Hill’s formula seems a little too neat, we can agree that the book provides a useful survey of apocalyptic perspectives, along with the author’s articulated position as a person who respects science but also prays. It can serve as a resource for one who is seeking to be a "Bible-believing Christian" without getting tangled up in the hermeneutical absurdities of premillenial dispensationalism and the fictional fantasies of the Left Behind novelists.

—Daniel Hertzler, Scottdale, Pennsylvania, a longtime editor and writer, contributes a monthly column to the Daily Courier (Connellsville, Pa.).