Never in my wildest imagination did I ever dream that one day I would be writing a book about eschatology (the interpretation of biblical prophecies about the last days). Indeed, of all the people on the earth, I would appear to be among the least likely to write such a book.
You see, my field of expertise is about as far from theological discourse as probability permits: I am a scientist -- a college professor with a Doctor of Philosophy degree in Engineering Physics. My whole professional career has been devoted to the study of the laws of this physical universe, not to the mysteries surrounding prophetic scriptures.
This does not mean that I have had no interest in spiritual matters, for I am totally convinced that spiritual truths are significantly more important than scientific theories. Nor does it mean that I have acquired absolutely no background in religious matters, for I have received some religious training from the time I was a child.
However, all of my religious training has been through self-study at home or group study in church. None has been in a formal educational setting; such as, a college Bible class or a seminary theology course. Therefore, from the credential point of view, I could never be classified as an expert in the field of eschatology.
What, then, is my justification for writing a book such as this?
It is the simple conviction that a person does not have to be an expert to teach (nor a genius to learn) what God has revealed in the Holy Bible. Just as God allows a person to understand the plan of salvation without being a theological expert, so also he allows a person to understand biblical prophecy without being an eschatological expert. In neither case, does God require educational expertise, intellectual superiority, or worldly wisdom in order to understand his revealed truth. What he does require is a heart seeking to learn and willing to respond to the truth he reveals. (1CO 3:18-20.)[1]
But I was not always of this conviction. Like many of you, I felt that biblical prophecy was such a difficult and mysterious subject that only a privileged few could ever hope to understand its deeper implications. Furthermore, the future seemed so confusing and so uncertain that any attempt on my part to predict it with any degree of accuracy was doomed to fail.
For example, every time I thought about such things as modern medicine, instantaneous communication, rapid travel, increased longevity, expanding knowledge, conquest of space, and the many other miracles of modern science and technology, my heart was filled with joyful optimism. During such times I easily could believe that there was nothing beyond the capabilities of modern man. No challenge seemed too great to be met and no problem too difficult to be solved. Surely the future of mankind could be nothing but glorious beyond my most vivid imagination.
But whenever I remembered such things as AIDS, global pollution, increased terrorism, severe famines, depleting resources, rampant immorality, the population explosion, and the possibility of all-out nuclear, chemical, and biological warfare, all thoughts of optimism vanished. During such times I was overwhelmed with gloom and despair because it seemed obvious to me that there were no solutions to society's more serious problems, that this planet and our species could not long endure, and that there was absolutely no hope that mankind would ever swerve from its headlong plunge toward total destruction.
Between these periods of ecstasy and despair, when I would try to appraise the situation less emotionally, I would usually find the future just too confusing and too disturbing to ponder for very long. Like many other people living in the modern world, I spent most of my life trying to forget about tomorrow and live one day at a time.
Of course, as a Christian, I knew that everyone's destiny ultimately resided in the hands of God -- that, regardless of our human plans and efforts, everything eventually would all work out in God's own time and in accordance with God's own plan. I also knew that God had revealed the major elements of that plan through the prophecies he had recorded in the Holy Bible.
But the prophecies in the Bible were often difficult for me to understand. They frequently were filled with obscure symbolism and rarely occurred in chronological order. They were so numerous and scattered throughout the Bible in such a random manner that it was essentially impossible for me to integrate them all into a complete and consistent picture of the end times.
Clearly a detailed study of biblical prophecies was no trivial undertaking. It would require more time and effort than I was willing or able to expend. So, for many years, I tried very hard to avoid any serious study of biblical prophecies.
In fact, I was convinced that neither I nor anyone else could possibly discern the correct picture of the last days as long as God intended for this mystery to remain hidden. And scriptures like Daniel 12:8-10, Matthew 24:36, and Acts 1:7 convinced me that God did intend for these mysteries to remain hidden -- at least until the end times. [2]
|
DAN 12: 8 And I heard, but
I understood not: then said I, O my Lord, what shall be the end of these
things? 9 And he said, Go
thy way, Daniel: for the words are closed up and sealed till the time of the
end. 10 Many shall be
purified, and made white, and tried; but the wicked shall do wickedly: and
none of the wicked shall understand; but the wise shall understand. |
MAT 24: 36 But of that day
and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only. |
ACT 1: 7 And he said unto
them, It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father
hath put in his own power. |
Because of scriptures like these, I really could see no point in attempting to understand the mysteries of biblical prophecies before the time of their actual fulfillment. In fact, to me there seemed to be great danger even in trying to understand such mysteries before their time.
Look at what happened to the scribes and Pharisees during the time of Christ. They had so carefully searched the Scriptures, so diligently studied the prophecies, and so meticulously mapped out the "correct" interpretation of the prophetic passages that when Christ actually did appear (in a manner contrary to their expectations) they not only failed to recognize who he was but even rejected his teachings to the point of their own eternal damnation.
Heaven knows that I did not want to be like any of those people -- so blinded by my own preconceived notion of future events that I would fail to recognize the fulfillment of prophecy even as it occurred right before my very eyes. Therefore, for many years I tried very hard to remain completely open-minded about the proper interpretation of biblical prophecies by refusing to formulate even the simplest conclusions on the subject.
But it is impossible to read the Bible without encountering prophetic scriptures, and impossible to encounter such scriptures without pondering their meanings, and impossible to ponder their meanings without formulating some kind of conclusions. In other words, it is impossible to grow significantly as a Christian without developing some kind of concept about the end times.
So in spite of my effort to remain open-minded, I found myself inevitably formulating my own personal interpretation of prophecy. Furthermore, that viewpoint grew more and more dissatisfying as time progressed. Eventually the dissatisfaction grew to the point that I knew I had to do something about it.
But what could I do?
I was a career physicist, not a professional theologian. I certainly was not qualified to integrate all the prophecies of the Bible into a clear, consistent, and detailed view of the end times. Better scholars than I had been trying to do that for millennia without significant success. Nor was I likely to find any real answers among the volumes of literature written by human experts in the field. If they could not find the answers among themselves within twenty centuries of intensive research, surely I could not hope to find the solution among their writings even if I spent the rest of my life in the attempt.
Obviously, no deliberate, intensive study of prophecy would ever supply all the answers I wanted, nor would a total avoidance of the subject ever provide the tranquillity I needed. So I prayed that God would either reveal to me an interpretation of prophecy that I could accept or else provide me with the contentment to continue without that knowledge.
Notice that I did not pray for an understanding of the ultimate meaning of prophecy. If God did not want to reveal to me the hidden mystery of his prophecies, that was all right with me. (Wasn't I magnanimous?) What I needed, or thought I needed, was an interpretation of prophecy that was personally satisfying -- something that was not filled with ambiguities and nagging questions -- something that would allow me to put this issue aside and get on with the rest of my life.
But whether I studied the Bible on my own or read books written by others, I could find no interpretation of biblical prophecies that was satisfying to my soul.[3] Then, during the summer of 1988, I encountered a book that was different from all the others I had read on biblical prophecies.[4] Rather than espousing a single viewpoint, it presented the views of four different authors, with each view critiqued by the authors of the other three views. This approach was very enlightening to me and helped me to understand how it is possible for different, born-again Christians to hold, with honest conviction, contrary viewpoints of the last days. Furthermore, one of these viewpoints, expressed by Dr. Anthony A. Hoekema, gave me a completely new perspective of looking at the book of Revelation.
This perspective is based upon the simple assumption that the book of Revelation should not be interpreted as a single chronological description of the end times but rather as seven parallel accounts of those days. Such an assumption was particularly intriguing to me because (1) I had never heard of it before, and (2) it seemed so easily verified.
If Revelation truly did consist of seven parallel accounts, then a person should encounter very little difficulty in harmonizing those accounts into a single, self-consistent picture of the last days. So I decided to sit down and test the validity of this hypothesis for myself.
The result was startling!
Not only did I find that it is possible to view Revelation as a collection of seven parallel accounts, I also found that these seven accounts can successfully be harmonized into a single, coherent picture of the last days; that the harmonizing process removes most of the ambiguity of the prophecies (so that the resulting picture is essentially unique); and that this picture is surprisingly consistent both with the other prophecies of the Bible and with the events currently taking place in the world around us today. In other words, I found that the Harmony of Revelation constitutes a complete, consistent, and unique interpretation of the prophecies of the latter days that is being fulfilled right now before our very eyes.
Indeed, I became so excited about the eschatological viewpoint I derived that summer that my two daughters and their high school friends became curious about its predictions. So in the spring of 1989, I taught a youth Bible study on the Harmony of Revelation. At that time I said that harmonism predicted that before very long international communism would fall under an apparently fatal blow but then, at a later time, would miraculously rise again and conquer the whole earth. Approximately six months later, the Berlin wall did come tumbling down. Shortly thereafter the Soviet empire collapsed and the whole world declared, "Communism is dead!"
Needless to say, by this time, I was satisfied that God had answered my prayer. Finally, after all these years of eschatological uncertainty, God had given me an interpretation of prophecy that answered all my most nagging questions -- an interpretation that was different from anything else I had ever encountered.
Before long, I came under the conviction that others might also be as I had been: dissatisfied with every view of eschatology they had ever heard about. Perhaps they would find as much personal satisfaction in learning about this harmonistic picture of the end times as I had. And perhaps, just perhaps, this interpretation of Biblical prophecy might be the one God has kept hidden for millennia to be revealed only to us who are living during these last days of this present universe.
In any case, it seemed proper to write this book. I only hope you, the reader, will find it edifying.
[1]See Appendix A for a list of the three-letter symbols used in this book as a shorthand notation for scriptural references.
[2]All of the biblical quotations included in this book are from the King James Version of the Bible in order to respect modern copyright laws. However, this does not prevent you from looking up each of these quotations in a more modern version of the Bible in order to gain a better understanding of what the scripture really means.
[3]See Appendix B for a survey of some of the major theories of eschatology that have been proposed down through the ages. In my opinion, every one of these theories was either contradicted by certain Biblical passages or else was so vague as to be effectively useless.
[4]The Meaning of the Millennium: Four Views, edited by Robert G. Clouse with contributions by George Eldon Ladd, Herman A. Hoyt, Loraine Boettner, and Anthony A. Hoekema, published in 1977 by InterVarsity Press, Downers Grove, Illinois 60515, ISBN 0-87784-794-0.