This has been bugging me for quite a while.
Why would Jesus and the New Testament authors warn their 1st century audiences about impending judgment (the day has come, it is the last hour, these last days, etc.) and then... nothing happens? Am I missing something?
Here we sit almost 2000 year later, and... still nothing.
St. Paul says that Jesus was "born of a woman, born under law to redeem those under law" when "the fullness of time had come". God sent his Son at just the right time. Wouldn't the right time to send Jesus to warn of impending judgment be the time of the people who would actually experience this day of judgment? If Judgment Day is to come in our lifetime (or later), doesn't it make sense that God would send his Son in OUR lifetime (or later)?? Shouldn't God send his Son to the people on whom the final judgment would fall in order to warn them? How long does "the fullness of time" last?
And here we sit. Still waiting.
I know, I know-- "no one knows the day or the hour" and "with the Lord a thousand years are as a day" yada yada. But certainly God wouldn't warn certain people at a certain time in history only to do... nothing! It makes no sense to me.
"Well, we do have the written Word of God to warn us," you might say. But it employs images and metaphors that are not used today and are, quite frankly, foreign to us and audience specific.
"We have to translate and interpret it," you might further say. But with an event as big as the destruction of our universe and billions upon billions of people being thrown into hell (if that's what it really is) why is it left to us to translate and interpret? Why is it left to anyone to translate and interpret? Shouldn't the message be painfully clear without the mental gymnastics?? I'll bet it was to the original audiences!! Show me where it says, "Translate and interpret this book into English so that people in the United States in the 21st century can understand it."
It seems foolish to send a bunch of people on the other side of the planet 2000 years ago to their graves all riled up about the return of the Son of Man only to disappoint them.
As our churches continue to empty out and we are sitting around wondering why, we might want to pause and give people some credit. Perhaps they already know what theologians (such as myself) are just starting to realize-- that there is a LARGE disconnect between the world of the Bible and the world of today. People are weary of people like me constantly trying to navigate and bridge that disconnect, looking silly in the process. People are nice and won't say anything. They just won't show up anymore.
Honestly, I'm also getting weary of people like me.
You said:
ReplyDeleteWouldn't the right time to send Jesus to warn of impending judgment be the time of the people who would actually experience this day of judgment?
This is precisely the problem I have with dispensationalists.
They state openly that much of prophecy was NOT for the original audience--particularly the book of Revelation. It was written ONLY for the people of the end-times (us), because the people of that day would not be able to recognize a context, which did not exist until now.
What kind of sense does that make? For two thousand years believers have read the book of Revelation which was not even written for them--but for us.
I think your idea that much of it related to the destruction of Jerusalem is a good one. In addition, I think Jesus' talk of destruction was probably in regard to each individual's personal destruction in death if they chose to reject the offer of eternal life.