25. Eschatology

Question 0

Consistent Eschatology

Answer 0

Jesus’ message was fundamentally and exclusively theological. He was deluded, believing that the kingdom would come in his lifetime. After his 12 disciples returned, he realised he had mistaken the parousia, and went to the cross as a ransom to ‘extort’ from God the new age.

Albert Schweitzer (1875–1965)

Question 1

Classic Liberal Eschatology

Answer 1

Eschatology does not belong to the authentic teaching of Jesus, but is the product of the fervent atmosphere of the first-century church (the ‘husk’). Jesus’ teaching on morality is the ‘kernel’.

E.g. Adolf von Harnack (1851–1930)

Question 2

Realised Eschatology

Answer 2

Jesus’ ministry, death, resurrection, ascension and Parousia were a single complex event. Jesus has brought in the kingdom, but ‘future eschatology’ entered the NT when the later church expected Jesus to immediately return.

C. H. Dodd (1884–1973)

Question 3

Existential Eschatology

Answer 3

The Eschaton is the ‘kairos’ in which the individual human existent is given opportunity to decide for authentic existence. Not the belief that the end of the world is just ahead.

Rudolf Bultmann (1884–1976)

Question 4

Dispensational Eschatology

Answer 4

No connection between OT prophecies concerning future blessing of Israel and the church of the present age. This age is the ‘grand empty parenthesis’. Pretribulation rapture of the church, Daniel’s ‘seventieth week’ of tribulation for Jews and the world, the second coming of Christ who will rule with rod of iron for a thousand years.

1909 and 1917 Scofield Reference Bible
Dallas Theological Seminary, founded by Lewis Sperry Chafer in 1924.