I thought studying the specific words “the latter days” in the bible might bring me some clarity on end times prophecy and where we stand in it. But this article took a different turn.
Generally, research for my articles starts with a quick search to see if a comparable article has already been written. This can lead me to not write at all, because the issue has been substantially covered, or to write a competing viewpoint. But in this case, the first article I came up with was from Free Bible Study Lessons https://www.free-bible-study-lessons.com/latter-days.html.
It was just a few links from the top of the search results. And I believe it deserves discussion, as it seems popular, and right off the bat it makes assertions like the one below (a direct quote from the article in question):
“Study for yourself - nowhere in the Old Testament does the term "the last days" or "the latter days" refer to the physical end of the world. For the most part they were looking forward to the time of the New Testament.”
Ok, sounds good... But let’s check the author’s first example, just in case. Below he is suggesting that many “end times” prophecies in the Old Testament were fulfilled long ago.
“Is. 2:2 declares, "Now it shall come to pass in the last days, the mountain of the house of the Lord will be established as the chief of the mountains, and will be raised above the hills; and all the nations will stream into it" [NKJV]. Micah 4:1 is almost an exact quote of this verse.
The "mountain of the house of the Lord" is the kingdom of God which was brought into being in the death, resurrection, and ascension of the Lord Jesus Christ. It has become the chief mountain and all the nations and peoples who accept Jesus as Lord and Savior become part of it. In this case, we see that the phrase "the last days" was referring to the days when the international kingdom of God was established, i.e. at the First Coming of Christ.”
But wait! The author is attempting to show that the arrival of Jesus is the fulfillment of the above prophecy. However, if you go and read just the next two verses in Isaiah 2 you might notice a glaring problem with that statement...
3 Many people shall come and say, “Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, To the house of the God of Jacob; He will teach us His ways, And we shall walk in His paths.” For out of Zion shall go forth the law, And the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.4 He shall judge between the nations, And rebuke many people; They shall beat their swords into plowshares, And their spears into pruning hooks; Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, Neither shall they learn war anymore.
Isaiah 2:3-4
The problem is these things haven’t happened yet!
And this seems obvious to me. To me, verses 3 and 4 sound a lot like the end of the book of Revelation, where Christ rules for 1,000 years on earth; there is peace, and people from all nations regularly travel to Jerusalem. Sure, many people travel to Jerusalem now, but I would argue the word of the Lord doesn’t go out from there. Jerusalem simply does not embrace Christ, and it won’t right up until the end of the world as we know it (see Revelation again… and Isaiah). But more obviously, nation still lifts up sword against nation, and we definitely still learn war. As a matter of fact, we’ve, collectively, as a world, never stopped fighting or learning war. Prophetically speaking, that is something that doesn’t happen until after Christ has returned a second time and judged the world.
How do you miss this?
And why did the author stop his quote at verse 2? Was he religiously following the beliefs of a pastor or the teachings of a seminary? Was he pushing his own viewpoint or the agenda of his denomination? Did he really write a whole article without reading the contextual verses around it?
I would prefer not to be harsh, but cherry-picking single verses, regardless of why you’re doing it, causes confusion and doesn’t tend to do the faith any services. And yes, there are verses throughout the bible where the words “the latter days” appear to be used in different ways. The author is right about that. But that is not what happened in the situation above. The situation above seems to be emblematic of a problem that comes up frequently in the church.
Teachers in the church are all too often afraid to say, “this is what I think, but I don’t know for sure.”
If I were to speculate on what might be happening above in the most equitable way possible, I’d say this article might come from an interesting belief in the church called “Preterism.” The idea behind this belief is that all prophecy has already happened. But I think that both the re-establishment of Israel and the last several chapters of Revelation present significant enough problems for this theory that we need not address it in full. I don’t believe there has been a thousand years of peace; we don’t seem to be living in glorified bodies; the valley of Armageddon does not appear to have been filled with blood up to a horse’s bridle at any point in history, and nobody has split the mount of olives in two, all of which are pieces of end times prophecy in the book of Revelation. It would be fair to note that I have met Preterists who know their doctrine well, who argue somewhat compellingly that the more popular views presented in most non-denominal churches have biblical timing and history all wrong. It's hard to disagree with that. Yet, I am not going to present this idea in full because of the time it would take, and because, while I do think the church at large has some goofy prophetic ideas, I don’t believe that means preterism holds up in the end.
Partial Preterism could also explain the article above. Partial Preterism is essentially Preterism’s little brother. This idea is that the modern church incorrectly applies some prophecies that were previously fulfilled to modern times. Partial Preterism’s adaptability makes it a much more intriguing idea, at least to me. One of the backbones of this more flexible set of beliefs tends to hold up the “abomination of desolation” prophecy mentioned in both Daniel and Mathew as an example of a prophecy that already happened.
15 “Therefore when you see the ‘abomination of desolation,’ spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place” (whoever reads, let him understand), 16 “then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. 17 Let him who is on the housetop not go down to take anything out of his house. 18 And let him who is in the field not go back to get his clothes. 19 But woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing babies in those days! 20 And pray that your flight may not be in winter or on the Sabbath. 21 For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been since the beginning of the world until this time, no, nor ever shall be. 22 And unless those days were shortened, no flesh would be saved; but for the elect’s sake those days will be shortened.
Mathew 24:15-22
The idea here is that the Greek King Antiochus IV Epiphanes sacked Jerusalem around 167-168 BC, and after doing this he sacrificed a pig in the Jewish temple on the “Holiest of holies” (the altar), covered the priests in pig’s blood, and then killed them. There is even non-biblical evidence of this. The Greek historian Diodrus wrote about it.¹
An ancient coin depicting Antiochus IV Epiphanes
However, if you look at the wording in the verses above, I don’t think this partial Preterist idea holds up either. The book of Mathew was written a couple hundred years after Antiochus sacked Jerusalem. It directly ties itself to the prophecy in the book of Daniel (Mat. 24:15), and it very much appears that Mathew was warning the people of his day about something they should be on the lookout for. But I also believe, whether Mathew realized it or not, this warning was intended to go down through the ages after him. I believe 2 Peter 3 is one of several chapters that confirms this. Since the entire chapter is important (2 Peter 3), I’ll just suggest you read it for yourself and make your own decisions.
The reason I’ve decided to make a point on this is that I think we’re all too quick to accept the opinions of so-called bible teachers. I think there is room for discussion of different eschatological viewpoints, but there is no reason for Christians to call their theories facts, yet we do it habitually.
In the same way your pastor’s viewpoints from bible college are not higher than what’s actually written in scripture, writing an article on the end times does not make you an expert on prophecy. We need to do better at presenting our theories as theories.
With that said, since this article is already somewhat lengthy, I think we’ll push my personal views on the end times to a latter day.
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