Unlimited Abundant Life; A Proclamation of Freedom from End Times Marginalization of the Finished Work of Jesus Christ

Let me start by saying I don’t entirely like my title! It sounds more formal than I am typically comfortable with, however, I simply could not reduce my thoughts to anything more concise.

Here’s what is at stake: the completed redemption of Jesus Christ by His once and for all sacrifice on the cross and His fulfillment of all the Pleasure of the Father in His Resurrection. See why my title is a bit word-y?

I Corinthians 2:1-5 suggests that Paul would walk into a gathering and take a reading-- is there a revelation of Christ crucified in this bunch? Is Jesus Christ crucified their final satisfaction for all wrath and judgment? Or does their God need anger management courses? Is their God as satisfied as Isaiah 53:11 predicted He would be when He looked on His Son's anguish in order to justify the many? Are these people freed by the crucified Christ from any further "need" for wrath? Because if they are, there will be a demonstration of the Spirit and of power and their faith will be in the power of God and not the wisdom of people. This is a place and a people where the Kingdom of God and revival will break out!

We are certainly discovering that to be true out here in Forest, Wisconsin. We are delighting in an atmospheric shift with the fresh air of a satisfied Father who loves to heal and deliver all kinds of messed up humanity.

We are in a covenant with permission granted to just BE in revival because all the price for admission has been paid for by the Crucified Christ. Judgment is satisfied...its time to seize and release the full benefits of Kingdom come….will of God be done….on earth AS IT IS IN HEAVEN.

But, make no mistake about it; this kind of faith and declaration cannot be made without an emancipation from the profound, albeit subterranean marginalizing effect of End Times hyperbole. Here’s why that’s true…

For the sake of simplicity I will need to use the most recognizable “handle” of what I believe has caused a spiritual anemia in the Church, not only today, but for many decades. Currently it is best recognized as “left behind”. While this genre has made for fascinating, high end book sales, it draws its nourishment from the soil of a dispensational theology that unwittingly demands 2 tragic and soul draining belief systems:
1. That God needs a 7 year Great Tribulation to finish His wrath.
2. That the entirety of the bursting benefits of Christ’s death and resurrection are not fully available until a time reserved away from today.

If it were not for these 2 demands, I could remain somewhat detached from a need to address this on this level. I would still see the treasury of God’s Word in a far more enriching manner, but I would hesitate from the possibility of entering yet another doctrinal debate where few win anything.

But those who know me best know that I take Isaiah 53:11 as a history shattering revelation for human kind; “As a result of the anguish of His soul, He (God) will see it and be satisfied; By His knowledge (Christ) the Righteous One, My servant, will justify the many as He will bear their iniquities.” The context of this verse makes it clear that the prophet Isaiah was carried by the Holy Spirit to see how Christ was injected with all the evil, sinful nature of humankind and how it contorted and devastated even His physical visage. Any further need for God’s wrath upon humans based on the absolute justice of the Law was once and for all SATISFIED IN CHRIST!

To insert a specific 7 year period of wrath and give it a credibility even remotely close to the Suffering Servant of Isaiah’s prophecy is to diminish Jesus Christ and I refuse to allow that thinking anywhere near my thought life, much less, my spiritual nourishment.

This 7 year period, taught by some as the 70th week of Daniel, is an essential component of the “left behind” mentality. According to this theory, God’s wrath will be so complete that He will need to rapture the church out of harm’s way.
Here are my questions; what if God’s satisfaction is complete? What if the notion of a 7 year Great Tribulation has actually been accomplished in the perfect 7 of Jesus Christ and Him crucified? What if our western, rational, linear thinking has reduced the revelation of scripture to charts and time-lines? What if end times fear based teaching has robbed Jesus of the reward of His suffering?

To suggest that God needs to impose more suffering on humankind in order to complete His “plan” is to imply that Jesus did not complete the work of redemption. I agree with Jesus when He said from the cross, “It is finished”, and I also agree with Jesus when He said, “If I be lifted up (on the cross) I will draw ALL men to myself”.(John 12:32)

Let’s move on to #2 from above; that the “bursting benefits” of Christ are not fully available until another time, far removed from our faith.

Dispensational, “left behind”, end times thinking has dark lines drawn around multiple promises throughout scripture. I don’t have time or space to list the promises in this space, but here’s a rule of thumb to find those promises in the Bible; if it’s outrageously good, culture reforming and nation healing, it is for the millennium and not for now. Here again, I refuse to plant my faith anywhere near this kind of irresponsible, convenient detachment from my accountability to be a man of faith.

Even the Lord’s prayer can not be answered on this side of the millennium according to this theory, “Thy Kingdom come…” is primarily for future reference, at best, because, only when Christ returns, after the 7 years of Great Tribulation, will the Kingdom come.

I will write more again next week. To conclude my thoughts today I want to be quick to note that my Bachelor’s degree program was deeply entrenched in this school of dread. I understand its nuances, its Bible proof-texts and its history. I spent an inordinate of amount of my early years of ministry trying to believe it and defend it. In 1983 I was exhausted by the bankruptcy of the lack of its spiritual dynamic.

When I came to believe that God was ready, willing and able to make good on any promise of His Word, my exhaustion was turned to exhilaration! To believe that I could participate in the healing of the nations drew me out of the malaise of a truncated view of a world about to “end”. Micah 4 was no longer locked away in the millennium…it became a faith dare to be a participant in the exaltation of a glorious church that would attract the nations of the world to come and see our Glorious God!

To all the fans of “left behind” I urge you to read Psalm 37, Proverbs 2:21,22; 10:30 and then look at Matthew 24:36-41. In the light of God’s promises that, “the meek will inherit the earth” and “the righteous will remain and the wicked removed”….how can we any longer read that the coming of the Son of Man will be as it was in the days of Noah without seeing that the wicked were removed and the righteous (Noah) was, “left behind”?

Think about it and come back next week for more, “Unlimited Abundant Life; A Proclamation of Freedom from the “End Times” Marginalization of the Finished Work of Jesus Christ”.