Chapter 10: the Second-Level Fulfillment—Kingdom Conflict

Scripture Passages

Matthew 24:1-31
Ezekiel 38

The Exalted Christ’s Temple-Building Project

The eternal inheritance has been merited and secured for all his people. The victory has been won. Christ has been raised from the dead and highly exalted at God’s right hand. As the reward for his obedience, he has received and been invested with the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:33; 1 Cor 15:45). The Lord and the Spirit are one to such an extent that Paul can even say, “the Lord is the Spirit … the Lord who is the Spirit” (2 Cor 3:17-18). At Pentecost, Christ (as one invested with the eschatological Spirit) poured out the Spirit, thereby forming the church as the body of Christ, which is the form of the kingdom of God in the present age prior to the consummation.

The risen and exalted Christ is the living stone par excellence, the cornerstone, and Christians are living stones being called out of darkness and being built into a spiritual temple for God (1 Peter 2:4-8). “Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?” (1 Cor 3:16). The present age is a temple-building age. Christ from his exalted throne in heaven is building his temple through the preaching of the gospel and the gospel ministry of the church. The current church age is essentially a temple-building project, but not a physical temple made of stones, but of living stones, believers themselves.

Common Grace Revisited

The kingdom of God in the present age is very different from the kingdom of God in its pre-Messianic phase. In the pre-Messianic phase, it was a theocratic kingdom with geopolitical dimensions. In the current age, it is a semi-eschatological reality that exists without a geopolitical realm. Although we are God’s holy people, that holiness does not claim a particular piece of real estate as holy unto God, nor can any of the kingdoms of the earth claim to be the holy kingdom of God on earth, like Israel was. There is no such thing as a holy nation or a Christian civil society. The kingdom of God is of course a theocracy (that is, the reign of God), but in the time between Pentecost and the consummation, the kingdom is entirely spiritual and has no physical embodiment other than the bodies of the redeemed. But even then our bodies are not yet glorified but still partake of the suffering that characterize this passing evil age.

In the present age, the common grace order that was initiated immediately after the Fall (Gen 3:16-19) and given more concrete covenantal shape after the flood (Gen 8:20—9:17), continues unbroken. Even during the time of the typal kingdom (Israel) the common grace order was in effect in the surrounding nations of the earth outside of Israel. Within Israel itself, common grace was suspended by the intrusion principle, that is, the eschatological kingdom intruded ahead of time into the time of the delay. The intrusion principle was most strongly evidenced in the holy war of Israel against the Canaanites and in the Mosaic law, which was in effect to guard the theocratic holiness of Israel by punishing idolatry and cleansing the holy realm of all that would defile (e.g., the laws requiring capital punishment for idolatry). During the time of the Israelite theocracy, then, the common grace order was suspended within the boundaries of the kingdom of God, but it was always in effect outside the land. Once the new covenant order was put into effect, and with the close of the old covenant age, most manifestly seen in the destruction of the temple in AD 70, the land was no longer holy, and the common grace order that had been in abeyance around the land now closed and swallowed up all the earth under its reign.

The Church Age

Jesus himself spoke of this church age. He told the disciples that he was going away to the Father but that he would not leave them as orphans and would send the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, to enable them to conduct their ministry during his absence (see John 13-17). In his parables, he looked ahead to the church age, speaking of a time when the gospel of the kingdom would be proclaimed, with various results, some genuinely saved, other making outward professions of faith only to fall away later (the parable of the sower and the seed), and yet others claiming the name of Christ but being false sons or tares within the field (Matt 7:21-23). And yet he looked ahead to “the consummation or end of the age” (a phrase used five times in Matthew: 13:39-40, 49; 24:3; 28:20) when all the tares and stumbling blocks will be removed from the kingdom of Christ and the kingdom will be brought to its eschatological fulfillment in the new creation. He predicted that the gospel of the kingdom would be proclaimed throughout the whole world, and that only when this was completed would the end come (Matt 24:14). He commanded his disciples to make disciples of all the nations and promised to be with them through all the days until the end of the age (Matt 28:19-20). He has given each of his servants a task to do in this present age, warning them not to be idle but to generate spiritual “interest” with what they have been given, and to be watchful for his return, when each of his servants would give account of how they used what had been entrusted to them (the parable of the talents; Matt 25:14-30). In all of this, it becomes evident that Jesus himself envisioned what we call the church age, the time of the mission of the church after his resurrection and before his return.

This present age is the age of grace, the age of the free offer of the gospel. The day of judgment is coming, but it is currently in abeyance, giving the servants of Christ an opportunity to call all men to repentance and faith in Jesus Christ. Peter tells us that it may seem to be a long delay, so much so that it gives scoffers an opportunity to doubt whether it will even occur. Scoffers say, “Where is the promise of his coming?” and argue that everything is continuing as it has since the beginning of creation (2 Pet 3:3-4). Of course, they deliberately forget the flood, which was a warning of coming judgment and which ended in a covenant of common grace, yet with an appointed expiration date when common grace would one day be no more and another flood-like judgment would sweep away the wicked (2 Pet 3:5-7). Nevertheless, “The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance” (2 Pet 3:9). The present age, then, is characterized by the free offer of the gospel. Yet it is not going to last forever. One day the eschatological day of the Lord will come, and only those who are in the ark by faith in Christ will be saved, while the rest of mankind will perish.

The Calling of the Gentiles

From the very beginning, God’s purpose was cosmic in scope. The goal was the production of God’s holy people, a glorified human race. God had commanded Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth (Gen 1:26). Had Adam passed the probation, he would have been confirmed in righteousness but not yet glorified, in order to allow for the procreation process that would have extended over many generations until the fullness of God’s holy people was established. Adam sinned, failed the probationary test, and plunged the human race into sin and death. But God promised that he would have a seed in the collective sense, the seed of the woman.

At first, this seed seemed to be narrowly focused on a particular line, from Seth to Noah to Abraham and his descendants. Yet even back in those early times of the history of God’s redemptive purposes in the covenant of grace, he had in view the calling of the nations. God seemed to let all the nations go their own way in the darkness of heathen idolatry, but he never forgot about the nations and had a plan to extend the covenant of grace to include the nations as well. Noah had three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Ham would be the father of the accursed Canaanites. Shem would be the father of the Israelites. Japheth would be the father of the Gentiles. And though for a time the Lord would be “the God of Shem,” yet the Gentiles were not forgotten. Noah prophesied: “May God enlarge Japheth, and let him dwell in the tents of Shem” (Gen 9:27). There would come a day when the Gentiles, represented by Japheth, would become part of the people of God, dwelling in the tents of Shem, no longer strangers to the covenants of promise (Eph 2:12).

This promise was renewed and picked up in the Abrahamic covenant. God told Abraham that “in him” all the families of the earth would be blessed (Gen 12:3). Paul interpreted the language of being blessed “in Abraham” as a prophecy that the Gentiles would one day be justified by faith along with Abraham the man of faith (Gal 3:6-9). Throughout the first level fulfillment of the Abrahamic promises, the promise that Japheth would dwell in the tents of Shem was never fulfilled—aside from a few individual Gentiles here and there who joined themselves to the people of Israel and made the Lord their God (e.g., Rahab, Ruth). But by and large, the first-level fulfillment was more concerned with executing the curse of Ham upon the Canaanites than on extending the blessing of Abraham to the Gentiles.

It was not until the first-level fulfillment was coming to an end in the exile that the ancient hope of blessing the nations was taken up again and projected into the eschatological future.

Isaiah 49:6:

“It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to bring back the preserved of Israel; I will make you as a light for the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.”

Isaiah 54:1-3:

“‘Sing, O barren one, who did not bear; break forth into singing and cry aloud, you who have not been in labor! For the children of the desolate one will be more than the children of her who is married,’ says the Lord. ‘Enlarge the place of your tent, and let the curtains of your habitations be stretched out; do not hold back; lengthen your cords and strengthen your stakes. For you will spread abroad to the right and to the left, and your offspring will possess the nations and will people the desolate cities.”

Jesus himself took up this promise and said, “I tell you, many will come from east and west and recline at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, while the sons of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matt 8:11-12). Before he ascended into heaven, the risen Lord Jesus commanded his disciples to make disciples of all nations (Matt 28:19). He said, “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8). And the rest of the book of Acts describes how that is exactly what happened. The book details how the gospel was first proclaimed in Jerusalem, and concludes with Paul preaching the gospel in Rome.

Paul spoke of the people of God as an olive tree, with roots nourished by the Abrahamic promises. He said that those among the Jewish people who stumbled over the stumbling stone (Christ) and did not regard him as the Messiah were cut out of the olive tree. Meanwhile, the Gentiles who did believe were grafted in. “And in this way all Israel will be saved” (Rom 11:26). He wrote, “the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body” (Eph 3:5). He said, “If you are Christ’s then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise” (Gal 3:29).

During this church age, God is building the eschatological temple, with Christ himself the chief cornerstone. By the preaching of the gospel to the ends of the earth and through the miracle of effectual calling, he is adding individuals as “living stones” to the edifice (1 Peter 2:4-8) so that the church might be “built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit” (Eph 2:22).

Pilgrim Politics

The particular epoch of pre-Messianic redemptive history that is most like the church age—a time of pilgrimage, interaction with pagans, not yet possessing the land as a holy realm—was the epoch of the patriarchs (Gen 12–50). Abraham owned the land in principle—it had been promised to him by God Almighty, maker of heaven and earth—and yet the Canaanites actually possessed it and he was only a sojourner among them. He even paid for the burial ground, the field of Ephron the Hittite, to bury his wife Sarah (Gen 23). Paying for land is quite different from taking it by force, as the Israelites would do later during the time of the first-level fulfillment. But intrusion ethics and pilgrim ethics are quite different—one is eschatological, the other is based on common grace. Abraham and Isaac even entered into covenants or treaties with the Canaanites (Gen 21:23-32; 26:26-33), which was forbidden to the Israelites in the time of the intrusion (Exod 23:32; 34:12; Deut 7:2; Judges 2:2).

As new covenant believers living in the Messianic church age before the Parousia, we have much in common with the patriarchs. Just as Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were “strangers and exiles on the earth” (Heb 11:13), we too are exiles, resident aliens, sojourners, pilgrims in this world (Jas 1:1; 1 Pet 1:1, 17; 2:11). “Here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come” (Heb 13:14). There is a book on the life of Abraham with the title Living in the Gap between Promise and Reality.¹ That is a perfect description of the patriarch’s life of faith, but it also describes the Christian life between the first and second comings. It is certainly the case that we have something better, since for us the promises have achieved their fulfillment in Christ. Yet at the same time, there is a future consummation that we do not yet possess in actual experience, even though we possess a right and title to it. The cosmos is not yet renewed; our bodies are not yet raised and glorified; we still feel the effects of the Fall in every area of our existence; we struggle with sin; we experience sickness, hardship, and death. But we have the Spirit within us as the down-payment of the future inheritance.

No Golden Age

The church age is a time of kingdom expansion. The gospel goes to the ends of the earth. All the nations are gathered in to the fold, in fulfillment of God’s promises to Abraham. But though it is a time of kingdom expansion, it is not a time of kingdom conquest. Of course, it is a time of spiritual conquest as individuals are rescued from the kingdom of Satan and transferred into the kingdom of Christ. But it is not a time of geopolitical conquest. If we think back to the conquest of the Canaanites in the time of Joshua, we saw that the conquest was an intrusion of the consummation. It was the day of the Lord at the typological level. God came in holy judgment to judge the wicked, clear them out of the land, and plant his people there in his holy realm. In the church age, the kingdom of God expands numerically by means of the preaching of the gospel and the calling of the Gentiles, but judgment is still in abeyance and the wicked are not cleared out. God’s people do not have their own geographical territory, nor do they possess political power to enforce the true religion in that territory. God’s people live side-by-side with unbelievers.

Not only that, but unbelievers are often hostile to God’s people and, in certain times and places, harass, marginalize, and persecute them. It is to be thus throughout the church age according to God’s purpose. The church age is characterized by suffering, persecution, waiting, pilgrimage, and witness. It is not a time of triumph as the world counts triumph, but a time of suffering and witness, indeed of witness through suffering.

The Antichrist Crisis

The Second Helvetic Confession (1566) says: “We condemn Jewish dreams that there will be a golden age on earth before the Day of Judgment, and that the pious, having subdued all their godless enemies, will possess all the kingdoms of the earth” (ch. 11). The writers of this confession then go on to explain why they reject a Golden Age: “For evangelical truth in Matt., chs. 24 and 25, and Luke, ch. 18 [presumably v. 8], and apostolic teaching in 2 Thess., ch. 2, and 2 Tim., chs. 3 and 4, present something quite different.”

The passages cited by this Reformation document all have one thing in common: they describe the end of the age in terms far bleaker than that envisioned in the Golden Age theory. Here are some of the things that will characterize that time:

The love of many will grow cold (Matt 24:12).
The time before Christ’s return will be characterized by the worst distress since the world began (Matt 24:21).
Even the elect would be deceived by the false miracles of the Antichrist if the time were not cut short (Matt 24:24).
Jesus asked, “When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?” (Luke 18:8).
A great apostasy will occur within the visible church (2 Thess 2:3).
The antichrist will deceive the world and set himself up as God (2 Thess 2:4).
Satan will gather the nations from the four corners of the earth in an attempt to destroy the church (Rev 20:7-9).

The last point—the gathering of the nations in a last attempt on Satan’s part to destroy the church—is one that Kline was quite preoccupied with. He was fascinated with the biblical theme of Gog and Magog (Gen 10:2; Ezek 38-39; Rev 20:8), which he also tied in with the battle of Armageddon (Rev 16:12-16), which he referred to as Har Magedon. Kline argued that the three references to “the battle” (ho polemos) in Revelation (16:14; 19:19; 20:8) are all the same event at the close of the church age. It is “the battle of the great day of God the Almighty” (Rev 16:14). Premillennialism separates these into two separate battles, one at the end of the church age and one at the end of the millennium. But Kline argues that they are all the same battle, one that occurs at the end of the church age. Of course, this means the visions of Revelation are not given in linear sequential order but follow a principle of recapitulation. The battle of Armageddon (Rev 16:14, 16) is the same as the battle of Gog and Magog (Rev 20:8). It is the final episode in the age-long conflict between the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman (Rev 12:17).

One of Kline’s primary arguments for identifying the battle of Armageddon with the battle of Gog and Magog is the background in Ezekiel 38-39, which is clearly what Rev 20:8 is alluding to. His argument is that the hordes of Gentile nations (Gog and Magog) come from “the uttermost parts of the north” (Ezek 38:6, 15; 39:2), a key phrase that is also used in the Old Testament to refer to Mount Zion “in the far north” (Ps 48:2). Kline points out that Har Magedon (Armageddon), which means “Mount of Assembly,” itself is another name for Mount Zion. Thus there is a Babel-like anti-Zion occupied by the Antichrist (“I will ascend to heaven; above the stars of God I will set my throne on high; I will sit on the mount of assembly in the far reaches of the north,” Isa 14:13). From that far north Satan, under the leadership of the human Antichrist and false prophet, gathers his hordes to attack the true Zion (“the camp of the saints and the beloved city,” Rev 20:8). It is a fitting climax to the grand narrative of Scripture. It is the final show-down between good and evil, which Christ coming down at the very end to destroy the enemies of God’s people once and for all.

Kline’s argument identifying the battle of Armageddon with the battle of Gog and Magog refutes premillennialism. But it also refutes postmillennialism, which rejects the idea that there will be a future crisis, placing it in the first century as already fulfilled. For postmillennialism, the world will be gradually Christianized and thus redeemed will be laid at the feet of God in a glorious state. There is no room for the battle of Armageddon at the end of history.

To get around this evidence, many postmillennialists hold to a preterist interpretation, arguing that all these visions of tribulation, the Antichrist crisis, and the great battle were fulfilled in the events surrounding the siege of Jerusalem in AD 70. Nero, who died in AD 68, is thought by preterists to be the Antichrist. However, while it is true that the destruction of Jerusalem is indeed a fulfillment of many prophetic passages, it is impossible to argue that all predictions of a future tribulation or apostasy were completely fulfilled in AD 70. Why not? Because the second coming of Christ is said to be “immediately after the tribulation of those days” (Matt 24:29). But if Christ’s return occurs immediately after the tribulation, the tribulation of AD 70 cannot be the final or only tribulation (for Christ did not return then). And the Antichrist, Paul tells us, will be “destroyed by the splendor of his coming” (2 Thess 2:8). But if the Antichrist will be destroyed by the splendor of Christ’s coming, then he must be alive when Christ returns. So the final Antichrist cannot be Nero, but an as-yet unrevealed individual.

To be sure, preterists are right to note that the destruction of Jerusalem is an important eschatological event in which the Old Covenant order is permanently terminated. But they cannot bleach out of the Bible all references to a still-future ultimate crisis. And that means that at least some of the passages predicting a time of great distress and persecution have yet to be fulfilled. And these passages teach that the times preceding the return of Christ will not be characterized by righteousness, peace, prosperity and revival. Rather, “just as it was in the days of Noah, so will it be at the coming of the Son of Man” (Matt 24:37). Postmillennialism is refuted by the clear teaching of Scripture (and repeatedly emphasized in Revelation 16:14, 16; 19:19; 20:8) that at the end of this current age, just prior to Christ’s return, there will be a final battle between good and evil. And that battle will be dramatically and decisively won when “the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven in blazing fire” (2 Thess 1:7-8) with that result that “fire came down from heaven and consumed them” (Rev 20:9). “The lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will kill with the breath of his mouth and bring to nothing by the appearance of his coming” (2 Thess 2:8).

Kline References

Kingdom Prologue, 356-360 (pilgrim politics).

God, Heaven and Har Magedon

“Har Magedon: The End of the Millennium.” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 39 (June 1996): 207-222. Reprinted in The Essential Writings of Meredith G. Kline.

Discussion Questions

What is the connection between common grace and the free offer of the gospel?
What is the problem with the idea of Christendom, a society in which church and state are integrally bound together as holy?
Describe the differences between intrusion politics and pilgrim politics.
Describe the similarities, in terms of pilgrim politics, between the age of the patriarchs and the present church age.
Why is suffering normal for the church in this present age?
Will there be a Golden Age before Christ returns? Why not?

Endnotes

Iain M. Duguid, Living in the Gap Between Promise and Reality: The Gospel According to Abraham (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 1999). ↩