The Day of the Lord

I've been asked to discuss my thoughts on Eschatology. First, allow me to say that I've come to my conclusions not by studying the dispensations, not by Covenant Theology, though I affirm a pretty standard Baptist version of Covenant Theology (everybody's exact understanding is a bit different, and I have a soft spot for amillenialism and historic premillenialism. From my perspective, the former is functionally amillenarian; you just tack on a Millenial Reign 0n the end. Recently, I've preferred this, but I've decided that amillenarianism, in general makes the most sense, given the expansive nature of prophetic literature and its layered character. And, yes, ex-apologist, I cam to this conclusion by reading the text itself, and, no, this is not directed at your feud with Manata.

What I see is that "the Day of the Lord" is not one day; rather its a string of "day," culminating in the Final Day of the Lord. It's like "the Covenant of Grace," it's not ONE covenant, strictly speaking, rather its a series of covenants that expand and contract and refocus the same basic ideas or administrations of the same covenant, rather like those Russian eggs (you know, where you open up one and find another and another). "The Day of the Lord" is a concept that I see with an intension that is fixed, but an extension that is variable. That is, in order to know what is in mind, it's important to know what the immediate sense is in mind and, with textual warrant, what wider and distant sense is in mind. In other words, when a person in the New Testament speaks of "the Day of the Lord," He may have in mind the end of the Old Covenant relative to the beginning of the New, the end of the Old Covenant system by the removal of the "sacramental sign," (eg. the Temple), and the Final Resurrection. In addition, in the NT, Advent is a "day of the Lord," as is the entire ministry of Christ, His crucifixion, Resurrection, session, and Pentecost and the subsequent spreading of the gospel. Prophetic language often telescopes, and the writer/speaker is describing a vision, rather like the trailer of a movie, in which we see enough to make out some details, but not, without more data, enough to precisely fill in all the details.

The danger of preterism of any time (and I will agree that it is very legitimate to preterize certain texts) in general is to insert a either/or disjunction into a prophetic utterance and thereby make mistake the immediate fulfillment with other fulfillments, when they are all related one to the other. On the other hand, the danger of futurism in general is to make all fulfillments distant and miss the immediate. Generally, I think the OT prophets had in mind the Restoration of Ezra and Nehemiah's day in their own minds, but the pattern of promise-fulfillment has Christ in view, so the amillenialist is right to say that Advent, the Transfiguration, Passion Week's events, the Resurrection, session, Pentecost, 70 AD, and the Final Resurrection are all telescoped into what Scripture has in mind. (In fact, I happen to think that the Reformation could be included in there, because as you study Reformation history, you quickly become very aware that the Church (the covenant community) was at it's all time low then too and Christ judged it for failing the missionary mandate, which is just an extension of the cultural mandate refitted for the New Covenant). Some of these are more in view than they are in other places, depending on the content of the utterance and the relation of the prophetic figure to the immediate event He has in mind. Ergo, "this generation" is laden with more than one referent. There's "this generation" that sees the fulfillment of X immediately, and there is "this generation" that is alive when the wider/later fulfillment is in view, and all those in between who experience/ed their own "day of the Lord.

That's why I see the events of 70 ad as being what Christ had in mind directly and immediately, but this is, as Gill gives room for in his commentary, a pledge. Christ is, so to speak, merely cleaning up after Himself in 70 ad, for He, in the last interaction He has with the Jewish leaders before His betrayal, pronounces a covenant lawsuit and the end of the Old Covenant. I'm inclined that the pattern of promise-fulfillment until the last day is that Christ / God judges the covenant community. It is our sins and apostasy in the New Covenant community that piles up against ourselves and this is what prompts the Second Coming, just as it has prompted every resolution to every major cycle of covenant history. In short, 70ad "wrapped up" the Old Covenant in visible terms, not just spiritual terms. After the bulk of elect Jews were added to the New Covenant community, and as Scripture progresses, we see the Jews becoming progressively hardened. Paul is very candid that this is due to God's judicial hardening. The sack of Jerusalem is merely the uprooting of the last sacramental sign of that era. There are still elect Jews, and they are still being added to the Church, but that administration of the Covenant of Grace has long since passed. However, 70AD is also a reminder for the New Covenant community that Christ will also judge us if we fall far enough into generalized backsliding, latudinarianism, and, speaking in terms of the visible church, generalized apostasy. God will even harden our community the way He hardened theirs, ergo Paul's comments in 2 Thessalonians, even if you preterize them, have a present day relevance, since, when a generation of Israel was rejected (the wilderness, the Exile, the First Century), He winnowed the congregation and He hardened the people judicially. The New Covenant will be "wrapped up" in visible terms, as well the whole of the Covenant of Grace confirmed in the elect into the eschaton and hardened against the reprobate at the Second Coming, and the events leading up to it will mark the same pattern of promise-fulfillment.

Likewise, in reading the history of Israel, you have a history of the people that is political in the OT. You have another (1 and 2 Chron.) that focuses on the history of the Temple. This largely mirrors the relation between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant. Yet, the same history is recounted. To a certain extent, I think this may be mirrored in the way we have the synopticists, Peter, and Paul articulation of eschatology vs. John. For the former, they are looking to Christ as King, so their eschatology follows the kingly paradigm. John's Gospel has a strong Temple replacement theme, so his eschatology focuses not on the temple as a physical place, but as a non-spatial Temple. In short, his eschatology follows the paradigm of the Chronicles, whereas the others seems to follow that of Kings.

I also find it helpful to divide up the administrations within the Covenant of Grace as a whole into what I call "covenant cycles" for the "visible covenant community." Each one begins with the people leaving one place, entering another, then being dispersed. The cycles are completed but the full sweep will remain incomplete until the Second Coming, completing with the last covenant cycle has ended. For example:
Adam: Adam and Eve expelled from Eden, Seth and Cain lines marry, Flood. Only a remnant (Noah's line) is saved.

Noah: The leave the ark and the Antediluvian state, enter the new world, Babel, they are dispersed, but a remnant is saved for the next cycle.

Abraham and Patriarchs: Abraham leaves Ur, his seed remains in the land (even in Jacob's time, for Esau his brother remained), but finally, they go to Egypt, a remnant is saved for the next cycle.

Mosaic: They leave Egypt, enter Canaan, descend into civil war, and we have examples (in Ruth) of people leaving the land to try to escape the chaos, but a remnant is saved.

Davidic: David's line begins in Ruth, when Ruth and Naomi reenter the land and meet Boaz, the land is united under Saul, he fails, David is anointed and persecuted, Saul dies, David becomes king after the tribes are united. Solomon takes the throne, later his kingdom is divided, they are all expelled from the land, but we know from Daniel, Ezra, Ezekiel, Esther, and Nehemiah that a remnant is saved.

New: the foreshadowing of the New Covenant is in the Restoration. They return to the land, rebuild the Temple, apostatize between that time and Jesus' day; eventually, the Jews are all dispersed after they reject Christ and the Temple is destroyed 40 odd years later. The New Covenant people also leave Jerusalem, are dispersed into the world and thereby "occupy the land." (the whole world). At the end of their covenant cycle, Christ returns to judge them for their general apostasy and the reprobate are sent away into perdition, and the Final State results.

In short, OT and NT eschatology is indexed to this general cycle. So, what are the elements of the cycle? In simplified form, "The Day of the Lord" is also related to the nationsd (the land) and to the covenant community (the Temple). Each has their own perspective represented. Typically, in my opinion, the nations are judged through the Word of God and the presence of the covenant people; God "visits" them with political problems as well, and on occasion by more direct means.

The land is subdued under each administration of the Covenant of Grace. The cycle of subduing "the land" occurs at the beginning of each cycle. Each cycle ends with judgment on the covenant community.
In the Covenant of Works, it begins in the Garden. Then Adam is expelled into the world. They subdue "the world" but do so in wickedness. After Babel, they disperse, but the covenant community is indexed to a particular family and the land becomes the nation we know from those days as Canaan. Paul notes, however, that Abraham understood those promises of land to be more than that particular land but the world in . The land is subdued by Joshua, falls into disarray in Judges, is organized under the kings, and then, by apostasy is purged. They are restored, and then apostatize again generations later. Christ is born, ends the Old Covenant administration, inaugurates the New, and the cultural mandate is made into the missionary mandate, and the Church is sent into "the world" to subdue it too. The Sethites and Cainites both subdue the world. Enoch of Seth and Lamech of Cain are in apposition to each other in the text, indicating that at that point the Sethites were subduing the Cainites; but they fail by intermarriage. The Flood not only judges the Sethites, with Noah's family elected to survive, it judges the whole world.

Under Abraham, he and his sons play "plant the flag" in Canaan. Notice that the pagans around Abraham are "subdued," God Himself destroys Sodom and Gommorrah, and Lot's sojourn there is relegated to failure.

Under Moses, Egypt's gods are all judged by the Word of God. Under Joshua, they subdue the land by the Word of God. In short, the covenant people, under the covenant, "subdue the land," and the nations are judged. In fact, this is the very reason that God takes them back to Canaan - to spew out the nations that have polluted the land.

They were supposed to do this during the reign of the kings. They failed, Israel first, then Judah. Both became like the pagans, and both were expelled from the land. But, look at Daniel. Nebuchadnezzer is judged by the Word of the Lord, as is Belshazzar. One of the artifacts of the Exile is the judgment of their captors, because the Word of the Lord comes to them. Signs and wonders confirm that God is still with His people, and signs and wonders are signs of God's faithfulness to His covenant people, and often witnesses against their enemies.
Jesus, when he comes exorcised the land, healed sickness, raised the dead, made the lame to walk, the blind to see, the deaf to hear, etc. He conquered sin and death and He proclaimed final judgment and covenant termination by His lawsuit against the leaders of the Jews. The Apostles did the same thing, and I think the amillenarian is right, therefore, to see the "Day of the Lord" at Pentecost, because the Word of God since that day has "subdued the land," by calling the elect out and purifying the people, in that you can look at both Pentecost and the sack of the Temple as "the day of the Lord," the former for "the nations" as a whole, and the latter for the (old) covenant people in particular. This duality is to be kept in mind relative to the Second Coming as well, in that the nations will be judged and we, the covenant people, will be judged. The general paradigm repeats this same cycle.