The Future
‘Because He lives, I can face
tomorrow, because He lives, all fear is gone; because I know He holds the
future…’ (Gaither), so goes the chorus of an assuring hymn. Jesus “holds the
future” because God is the God of time, past, present and future. The Triune God
pushes time forward as He keeps it ticking as He drags it behind Him. The
resurrected and ascended Jesus awaits the arrival of the final destination of
all things (including you, me and death): ‘For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall
be made alive …Then the end will come, when He hands over the kingdom to God
the Father after He has destroyed all dominion, authority and power. For He must reign until He
has put all His enemies under His feet. The
last enemy to be destroyed is death’ 1 Corinthians 15:22;24-26 NIV.
No matter how long dead you are, you’ll be made alive in the future!
It’s not hard
to see that the Christian has a far different take on the future than everyone
else. For the Christian the future is all about the resurrected Jesus putting
death to death on the Last Day and then living with His resurrected people
forever on the resurrected (i.e., renewed) earth. We see then why Christianity
lives or dies by Christ’s resurrection. That’s why the Apostle says, ‘If Christ
is not risen, your faith is futile…’ 1 Corinthians 15:17a. For the Christian
living in the present the future is tied to an event in the past. Without the
physical resurrection of Jesus the Christian has no future. But again, as the
Apostle says, ‘But now Christ is risen from the dead, and has become the
firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep’ 1 Corinthians 15:20.
The Christian
would much rather look into God’s Word than gaze into a crystal ball. Therein
God says, ‘I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like
Me, declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things that
are not yet done, saying, “My counsel shall stand, and I will do all My
pleasure”’ Isaiah 46:9b-10. Jesus holds the future, not the fortune-teller. And
He says, ‘Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own
things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble’ Matthew 6:34. Therefore,
whether it’s the near future or the far future it all belongs to Jesus.
There are
three main views (each with variants within) that Christians hold regarding
what the Bible says about the future: Premillennialism, Postmillennialism, and
Amillennialism. (The word ‘millennium’ means a thousand, as in a thousand
years. See e.g., Revelation 20.) The first view holds that things on earth will
progressively grow worse before Jesus physically returns to set up a thousand
year ministry, a “Millennial Reign.’ The second holds that Jesus will come back
only after there has been a thousand year (or an extensive) period of peace of
earth. And the third view is that things will carry on pretty much in the same
dismal state until Jesus’s Second Coming. The first and the last views are
pessimistic about the present and the near future. However, all three are
optimistic about the distant future.
Why the
different schools of thought? You may as well ask: Why the different Christian
Denominations?! However, every Christians is agreed that, ‘Jesus shall reign
where’er the sun, doth his successive journeys run; His kingdom stretch from
shore to shore, Till moons shall wax and wane no more.’ Isaac Watts
(1674-1748).
