Truth and Error about the Coming of Christ

Truth and Error about the Coming of Christ

A History of the Development of Prophetic Interpretations

A Comparison of Various Systems of Prophetic Interpretations: Their Origins and Development

By Edwin K. Gedney


A History of Prophetic Interpretation

1. In the Pre-Reformation Church
In the early days of the Church, after the time of the Apostles, there were few (if any) organized schools of interpretation of prophecy as we think of them today. Essentially, most of the early Fathers were Futurist in their interpretation in the sense that at that time most prophetic fulfillment lay in the future. However, some were not; for example, John (1 John 2:18, 2 John 7), who wrote of antichrist as working in his day, and others, who found fulfillment of tribulations in their persecutions under the Roman Emperors.
Some of the Fathers were what we would call pre-millennial, looking for a literal reign of Christ for 1,000 years after his return. Others, notably St. Augustine, thought of the millennium as the church age, and the Holy City as the Church – Christ ruling through the Church. This view precipitated a brief “Lord’s coming” movement about 1000 AD, and eventually became the more or less settled view of the medieval Church.
After Augustine’s fourth-century synthesis of Christian thought with Hellenistic philosophy and anthropology – basically, that of Plato, rather than that of Aristotle – little change in prophetic thought occurred in the medieval Church until the time of the Reformation. Thomas Aquinas made a further synthesis of Augustinian Christian thought with Hellenistic philosophy when the works of Aristotle were brought into the western world from the Arabic universities. His synthesis (known as Thomian philosophy) added a dimension of reason and logic to Christian thought, but it had little influence on the traditional Augustinian prophetic outlook – with the millennium and the church age being the same.
With the rise of a strongly authoritarian Church with a tightly organized doctrine, Augustinian theology, doctrine and prophetic insights tended to stabilize as the primary tenets. Occasionally, sporadic (and usually abortive) reform movements – such as those of Peter Waldo, Savonarola, and John Huss – occurred, but they were consistently repressed.

2. The Historical System of the Reformation
During the medieval period, many concepts and practices adopted from pagan religions had been added to the doctrine and practice of the Church. The Church of 1500 AD was vastly different from the Church of Apostolic times. The Reformation was essentially a “Back to the Bible” movement. This demanded a revival of a truly “Berean” attitude and inevitably brought to light again important prophetic revelations long neglected. Martin Luther, a former Augustinian monk and professor of Bible at Wittenburg University, was the chief leader of the reform in its early days. Building upon the prophetic views of Augustine, he and his associates gradually developed what may be called the Historical School of Prophetic Interpretation.
This school became that of the Protestant group and – with some change and development – continued to be basic through the succeeding centuries. Essentially, it holds that in the beginning of the Church most prophecy was still future. As time passes, some prophecy will have been fulfilled, some will be in the process of fulfillment and some will be yet to be fulfilled in the future, until the very end of time, when all will be past. The Reformers could not conceive of 1,500 years (including the great persecutions by the Roman Empire, the apostasy of the paganized medieval Church, and the bitter persecutions they themselves were undergoing) as being passed over in silence in prophetic revelation.
Among other then-present fulfillments, they identified the Papacy as the Antichrist of 2 Thessalonians 2:1-10 and Revelation 13:11, and related the Roman church of their day to the Babylon of Revelation 17-18. The corrupt practices of the Church at that time were such that they had much justification for their views. Their widely distributed tracts on these subjects greatly advanced the Protestant cause.
As they began to organize their doctrine in systematic confessions of faith, they included their prophetic views in them. The Helvetic Confession, the Westminster Confession and others clearly identify the Papacy as Antichrist and stress their historical prophetic approach. Today the Historical school has many variants and has greatly broadened its ideas of Antichrist, but has still the same basic approach.
As home Bible study developed in the Protestant group, numerous commentary Bibles with explanatory footnotes to help the home-teacher appeared. These, such as Scott’s Bible, Matthew Henry, and Barnes’ Notes, continued the historical interpretation.

3. The Catholic Counter-Interpretation
The pointing finger of the Reformers, identifying the Papacy with Antichrist, was devastating, and the Roman clerics speedily sought to develop interpretations of the prophecies that would neutralize the charge. The earliest of these was made by Ribera, a Spanish Jesuit, who, in 1585, wrote a treatise pointing toward a future Antichrist, possibly an apostate pope, but certainly not the one present in his day. Later, in 1614, Alcasar, another Spanish Jesuit, published a treatise putting the Antichrist in the past, again not the then-present pope, but the Roman emperors who persecuted the early Church.
These two views are extremely important because not only did they tend to safeguard the Papacy against the Reformers’ accusations, but each became foundational to one of the systems of interpretation recently adopted by many Protestants. The teaching of Alcasar – that the greater part of the Book of Revelation has been fulfilled and the Antichrist found in the Roman emperors and imperial persecutions – was picked up by those of the 19th century liberal Protestants who adopted any significant view of prophecy at all. Among these were Wellhausen and Delitzsch. It is now called the Preterist view.
The concept of Ribera – that the Antichrist and the fulfillment of most of the Book of Revelation lay far in the future – was revived by Maitland in 1826 and became the source of the modern Dispensational Futurist system, recently becoming popular in the fundamentalist Protestant churches.
In any event, the objective of both Jesuits was attained in that they provided an answer to the Reformers’ ascription of Antichrist to the Papacy, and also a foundation for the later Oxford Tractarian movement in England, whereby the Anglo-Catholic group sought a reunion of the Anglican and Roman churches. It is noteworthy that when Maitland revived Ribera’s treatise, and with Irving, Darby and others in the first prophetic conference of the modern day began the dispensational program (1826-1827), they at once began to decry the Reformers’ involvement of the Papacy with the biblical Antichrist. Thus, the efforts of Ribera and Alcasar succeeded in misdirecting the accusations of the Reformers from the then-present pope, either to an Antichrist past and gone, or to one far in the future.

4. Dispensationalism Develops in the Catholic Church
In the 17th and 18th centuries, there came a revival of prophetic preaching in the Roman Church. This occurred particularly among the French clerics. Cardinal Bellarmine also continued Ribera’s concept of a future Antichrist and developed it. These writings and sermons of the clerics were later translated into English by the Anglo-Catholic group in England (a group that desired reunion of the Anglican and Roman Churches). Ribera’s system was adopted by Maitland, the pioneer of Dispensationalism in England, about 1826 and became basic to the prophetic teaching of his splinter group. John Nelson Darby involved it in the establishment of his Plymouth Brethren group.
A most important development occurred about 1790, when another Spanish Jesuit, Lacunza, wrote a famous book (in Spanish), titled, “The Coming of Messiah in Power and Majesty,” under the pen name of Ben Ezra. He reverted from the traditional Catholic view of the Church Age being the Millennium, holding that the Millennium would follow the advent of Christ and be preceded by a future Antichrist. He appears not to have thought of this Antichrist as a personal being, but a negative moral trend, but definitely future. This book was widely debated in the Catholic Church and eventually was brought to England where it came to the attention of Edward Irving, an independent pastor, leader of a small Lord’s Coming movement analogous to (but different from) the Millerite movement then rising in the United States. Lacunza’s book, promoted by Irving, became very influential in the Albury Prophetic conference in 1827, the first modern conference basically Futuristic in thinking.
To provide a time of operation for this future Antichrist, many of these men cut off the last of the 70 weeks (or sevens, usually interpreted as sevens of years) of Daniel 9:24-27, moving it down to the end of time. Most post-Reformation expositors have not done this, as the 70 sevens (or 490 years) from the decree of Artaxerxes in 458-457 BC to rebuild Jerusalem bring one to AD 33-34, with the Messiah being cut off, but not for himself, and causing the sacrifices to cease in effect with his own sacrifice on Calvary in the middle of the last seven-year period, in AD 30. After this, the door was opened to the Gentiles. There seems to be no need to distort this prophecy by separating this last week of years, now by nearly 2,000 years, from the other 69, when there is a much more meaningful fulfillment of it without doing so. However, in this period these new Futurists made room for the revealing of Antichrist, the conversion of the Jews, the restoration of the defunct Roman Empire, and all of the Book of Revelation from chapter 4 through chapter 19.

5. Development of the Dispensational View among Splinter Groups in England
In 1827, Edward Irving translated Lacunza’s “The Coming of Messiah in Power and Great Glory” from Spanish into English and made it foundational to his Lord’s Coming movement. He also set it forth as the only view acceptable and orthodox. Irving’s messages were characterized by various spiritual manifestations such as tongues and predictive prophecies. A prophet in one of his meetings revealed that the Church had been wrong about the coming of the Lord and the rapture of the Church being a public event seen by all. He revealed that the Lord was to come invisibly to any but his own – a secret rapture – at the beginning of the seven-year period when the Jews would be converted and the Antichrist revealed. Then the Lord would be revealed to all when he came to initiate a literal 1,000-year reign.
There is nothing known to the writer, either in or out of the Bible, suggesting such a secret rapture, before this prophet in Edward Irving’s meetings. Tregelles, the Brethren commentator, also finds no earlier source.
The alleged prophet’s interpretation of the word “coming” is opposed to the teaching of Jesus about that event in Matthew 24:24-31. It also distorts the meaning of the Greek word translated “coming.” A reference to the table of “Uses of Key Greek Words” will show how these are used and how distorted to fit the Dispensationalist program. The word “parousia” is used some 24 times in the New Testament, and in no case can or need it mean anything but the visible, personal arrival of someone. In his “Approaching Advent of Christ,” Dr. Alexander Reese demonstrates that this – not a secret thing – was the use of “parousia” in both biblical and classical Greek.
Furthermore, the interpretation of Antichrist as revealed after the parousia of Christ is inconsistent with Paul’s order of events in 2 Thessalonians 2:9, where we read that Antichrist will be destroyed by the brightness (epiphaneia) of Christ’s coming (parousia). It is clear from this that there can be no antichrist after the parousia and rapture.
The whole Dispensationalist program is a confusion of comings and resurrections inconsistent with the biblical order.

6. Dispensationalism in the United States
Irving’s adoption of the Roman Dispensationalist view was patterned by John Nelson Darby of another splinter group, the Plymouth Brethren (although he was opposed by Tregelles and other Brethren). It was also adopted by an adventurer in odd Christian variants, Joseph Seiss. Little has been added since Seiss issued his “Lectures on the Apokalypse” (1830), in which he combined the Catholic and Irvingite views with some minor ideas of his own. This book has been reprinted. His other books, in which he endeavored to use the Great Pyramid as a prophetic device (“A Miracle in Stone”) and relate astrology to the Bible (“The Gospel in the Stars”), have not – for fairly obvious reasons.
The Dispensationalist view first came to America in a small book titled “Jesus Is Coming,” by William E. Blackstone. Later it was emphasized here by Arno Gaebelein and adopted by James Gray, later president of Moody Bible Institute. When Dr. C.I. Schofield was preparing what is really the last of the 19th century commentary Bibles, he was associated with Gray, Gaebelein, and others in preparing the doctrinal and prophetic footnotes. This “Schofield Bible,” partly because it could be carried easily, soon became very popular and in turn popularized the Dispensationalist prophetic view contained in it. There are many fine things about this commentary Bible, but unfortunately some who use it tend, in the pattern of Edward Irving, to regard its footnotes as inspired and equate adherence to them with orthodoxy, often excommunicating those who do not adhere to them.
When the Dispensationalist view was introduced to the United States in the late 19th century, most of the then growing group of Bible institutes adopted it and the “Schofield Bible” as the orthodox view. On the other hand, a majority of the seminaries of the day, after searching out its origins in the Catholic effort to preserve the Papacy, and noting its unreliable interpretations of Scripture, rejected it. In general, this difference still obtains today.
Because it is rare for a Dispensationalist book to give any account of the history of the development of the view, many who hold the view have no idea as to where it came from or how it developed, the books implying that it has always been the standard view of the Church.
The mainline historical interpretation, coming down directly from the Reformers, with modifications to keep it up with the times, is still very widely held in many denominational groups.

For more information, contact:
Dr. John H. Roller
5847 Brookstone Dr.
Concord, NC, USA 28027-2535
704-782-9574
johnroller@faithbiblechristian.com