6.) The Gathering of God’s People. When the Holy Spirit first filled Jesus’ followers, they were also enabled to tell the good news about Jesus in many languages. On that day, Jews who lived in almost every foreign country were in Jerusalem to celebrate a festival. With them were many “proselytes:” natives of those countries who wanted to join the people of Abraham. When this crowd heard the good news in their own languages, 3,000 of them were baptized and joined Jesus’ followers. This was the beginning of a distinct social group called the Church.
Although the good news was first addressed mostly to Jews and proselytes, before long it spread to many other countries where multitudes accepted it. In this way, another event anticipated at the End, the ingathering of God’s people from all nations, began to occur, and would continue until Jesus returned. In its first few centuries, the Church spread far to the east of Judea as well as far to the west. From the beginning, the Christian faith aimed to bring justice, peace and harmony to all nations.
These relationships between the Torah’s and the prophets’ hope for God’s future kingdom and the appearance of Jesus are extremely important for understanding the Christian expectation of Jesus’ coming. Christians believe that in Jesus’ history and the other events just mentioned, that earlier hope was already fulfilled in some significant sense, although it was not yet fulfilled in a complete sense. The final “harvest” had arrived because the “firstfruits” had already appeared. Yet it would continue until all fruits had ripened and been harvested. This tension between God’s Kingdom already being present and not yet being present may sound like a contradiction. Nevertheless, it is central to the biblical understanding of Jesus’ coming, for this is a two-fold coming.
III.) The Future Kingdom of God in the Western World
In my view, it is partly an accident of history that Christianity became the official state religion of many western nations. As it did, its views changed in some significant ways from the teachings of and about Jesus found in the Bible. I can trace only one change in a very general way: its expectation of the future coming of Jesus and of God’s Kingdom.
1.) The Early Christian Hope. Until the 4th century C.E. Christians were a small minority in the Roman Empire. Many of them came from the lower classes or from slavery. Yet the new kind of social group that Jesus talked about was visible among them. For instance, some Roman families left infants whom they didn’t want out in the fields to die. Christians often gathered up these infants and raised them. When plagues struck cities, most people fled. But Christians often stayed behind to minister to the sick, and sometimes died themselves. Christians avoided occupations that involved immorality, and with very few exceptions, service in the Roman armies.[10]
Since Christians believed in a King whose Kingdom was already present in some real way, they refused to worship the Roman gods or the Emperor. Consequently, the Romans persecuted them often, as they had persecuted their Lord. Most Christians expected that Jesus would return to this earth, and that God would punish the Romans when he did. This is expressed most fully in the New Testament book of Revelation, usually in highly symbolic ways which are difficult to interpret.
Revelation portrays God’s final destruction of those who oppose him. Jesus also returns, but it is not clear that he is directly involved in this. For example, while Jesus strikes down the nations with a two-edged sword, this sword comes from his mouth.[11] This recalls Isaiah’s prophecy: the Messiah “shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he will slay wicked.” (Isaiah 11:4) Any such sword or rod must be figurative, and refer to persuasion or preaching.
According to Revelation, Jesus’ followers also “conquer” evil, but only in the way their leader had: “by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they did not cling to life even in the face of death.”[12] Early Christians opposed the Roman Empire only by faithfulness to Jesus and his teaching, and by witnessing, through their way of life, to the reality of his Kingdom
During their first 300 years, most Christians expected Jesus to return to this earth, and for the earth to be transformed into a just, peaceful, prosperous society of those from every nation, tribe, people and language. These people would live forever. But they would not “go to heaven,” or to some realm entirely different from the earth. Instead, the powers of heaven would come down to earth, and transform humans and their environment. Although the nature of this transformation would surpass human understanding, humans would continue to be social, bodily creatures.
Because God’s final Kingdom would differ so greatly from earthly societies, and because God would destroy empires like Rome at its coming, the Christian hope sharply critiqued contemporary politics and social life, even though it contained no specific earthly agenda. The Roman authorities found it dangerous, subversive, and a good reason for persecuting Christians.
2.) The Common Western Hope. In 313 C.E. the Roman Emperor Constantine won a major battle and thought that the Christian God had given him the victory.[13] Constantine soon stopped persecution of Christians and made Christianity the favored religion of the Empire.[14] Suddenly Christians ceased being a persecuted minority mostly from the lower classes. Large masses of people, including some wealthy and powerful ones, joined them. For many of these new people, becoming Christian did not involve significant changes in their lifestyles. As time passed, fewer and fewer people who called themselves Christians followed the way of Jesus’ Kingdom: the way of sharing, peace and equality with people from other nations, races and social classes.
Most of these Roman “Christians” and their rulers were uncomfortable with the early Christian eschatology, which prophesied the Empire’s destruction and a very different society on earth. Gradually, the standard western expectation of Jesus’ coming changed in two main ways.
First, three of its main features-- the resurrection of the dead, the judgment of the nations, and Jesus’ coming-- came to be understood individualistically and were relocated from the future earth to heaven. The rising of the dead into God’s presence was shifted from one future historical moment to the countless moments when individuals died. Each one would encounter God when one’s body ceased to function and one’s soul rose up into heaven.
The final judgment was also transferred from God’s single, future dealing with all nations to the multiple moments when departed souls were assigned to heaven or hell.[15] Concern for the destiny of the human race was replaced by individual anxiety about entering heaven or hell. Hope for the righteous King’s coming changed into awaiting Jesus as a judge, often with fear. Jesus would no longer transform the world, but would finally save, or damn, souls.
The other three features of early Christian hope-- the Kingdom of righteousness, the gathering of God’s people, and the outpouring of God’s Spirit-- were still interpreted socially and historically, but in a very different way. Jesus the righteous King, who had been relocated in heaven, was also assigned a new role in this history.
Around 400 C.E. the great Christian writer Augustine of Hippo acknowledged that the biblical hope included the destruction of all empires, including Rome. But, Augustine added, this was valid only as long as the Roman Empire was persecuting the Christian Church. Beginning with Constantine, however, the Roman Emperors, with very few exceptions, favored and promoted the Church.[16]
One biblical name for God’s future Kingdom of righteousness is the “millennium,” which means a period of 1,000 years. Revelation 20:4-6 pictures Jesus reigning on earth with his saints during such a period (though it may not mean a literal 1,000 years). Augustine argued that since Christian Emperors now rule society, aided by the Church, the millennium was no longer future, but had already begun. The rule of the Roman Empire and the Roman Church was in fact the reign of Jesus the righteous king through his saints during the earthly millennium. The heavenly Jesus was, in effect, disengaged from human history. Though his earthly coming was occasionally mentioned, it was postponed to the millennium’s end-- far too distant to affect the present society.
God’s Kingdom of justice and peace, then, was not really future, but present in the Roman Empire, aided by the Church. The Romans prided themselves in spreading peace, justice and civilization through the world. To be sure, Roman engineering, architecture and law contributed lasting benefits to civilization. But for most conquered peoples, this came at the price of brutal warfare and oppression.
While Augustine’s eschatology gained favor in the western, or Roman, Church, it and the Eastern, or Byzantine, Church drew further and further apart until they separated in 1054 C.E. This is western Christendom’s eschatology, for it had little impact on the Eastern churches.
In the west, the gathering of God’s people became identified with missionary work within the Roman Empire and in European lands beyond it. These efforts were distant from Eastern Church missions, except for a few countries where the two competed. As Islam arose, this western “millennial” Christianity became increasingly hostile to it, and could attack it as God’s direct enemy, as in the Crusades. Western Christianity aligned itself more and more with European civilization, and often sought to defend it against other nations, and even to destroy others, instead of extending the good news of Jesus and his Kingdom of justice and peace to everyone.
Finally, God’s Spirit was no longer poured out on the whole world, but mostly on the Roman Church, enabling its leaders to define doctrine, perform sacraments, and govern through Church law.
3.) From the Protestant Reformation to the Present. During the 16th century C.E. many European political territories, from city-states to entire nations, rejected Roman Catholicism when their leaders established new Protestant Churches. The unity of western Christendom was fragmented by wars among Protestants and Catholics for at least a century. But by the 18th century the common western hope reappeared in a more secularized from. Western nations now considered themselves superior to others due to their advances in science and technology, and their “enlightened” social outlook, which promoted freedom and democracy.
“Progressive” thinkers believed that these new scientific and political procedures could bring prosperity and justice to the world very quickly and initiate, in effect, a millennium.[17] This vision inspired a western “mission.” As they conquered or took control over much of the globe, westerners supposed, like the old Roman Empire, that they were bringing other countries the benefits of their advanced civilization. But for most conquered peoples, as for subjects of the Roman Empire, these came at the heavy price of brutal warfare and oppression. Some Christian missionaries, remembering the early Christian hope of Jesus’ peaceful Kingdom, opposed these evils. But too many other missionaries were guided by the common western hope instead of this Biblical vision.
In North America the common western hope reappeared much earlier than in Europe. No symbol inspired its rise to power more than “the Kingdom of God.[18] Many early settlers believed that God had called them to build that Kingdom anew on their unexplored continent. This task drew successive generations 3,000 miles from the Atlantic coast to the Pacific, almost annihilating the Native Americans in the process. Then it expanded into the Enlightenment mission of bringing science, education, and democracy to the rest of the world.
This secularized millennial mission is still rooted deeply in the American psyche. The present government invokes its symbolism very often. It leads countless Americans to consider the tremendous cost of their involvements overseas-- in human lives, environmental damage and billions of dollars-- necessary, and therefore justified, for completing this mission. Many American Christians seem to be blind to these horrible consequences, because they view this “mission” as God’s.
To nations which feel its heavy impact, however, it looks much more like the violent expansion of self-interested power and wealth. I am deeply grieved by the incalculable suffering this “mission” inflicts on Iraquis, Palestinians, Lebanese and many others. As an American, I also fear that it is making my country not safer from, but much more vulnerable to, attack-- on my children, my grandchildren, my friends, and millions of Americans who oppose it. I notice many parallels between my governments’ efforts and those of the Roman Empire to dominate the world. While I would not identify America with any eschatological figure,[19] Christian eschatology warns that nations who follow this path will overreach themselves, arouse widespread hatred, and eventually bring on their own destruction.
