Baptist Theology and Distinctive Doctrines — Unit 10: Last Things in Baptist Thought: The Views Baptists Hold and the Common Hope

Key Verse

"looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ" (Titus 2:13, NKJV)

Learning Objectives

When you finish this unit, you should be able to:

1. State the hope that all conservative Baptists share about the return of Christ, the resurrection, the judgment and the eternal state.

2. Describe what Baptist Faith and Message (2000), Article X, says, and what it leaves open.

3. Explain the main views of the millennium: historic premillennial, dispensational premillennial, amillennial and postmillennial.

4. State the main points of difference about the rapture, the tribulation and Israel.

5. Teach this subject in a church without date-setting, fear or division.

The Voice of This Unit

This unit is written from inside the Baptist tradition, for Baptist students. It is conservative and evangelical. It is also different from earlier units in one respect. On the return of Christ, the resurrection and the judgment, Baptists speak with one voice, and this unit says so plainly. On the timing and order of events around the millennium, conservative Baptists have held several views from the beginning, and each is held by people who honor the Bible. This unit therefore does not make any one of these views the Baptist position. It presents each fairly, and then offers the Baptist counsel to hold them humbly and not to divide over them.

Scripture says, "Test all things; hold fast what is good" (1 Thessalonians 5:21).

The Common Hope

Whatever view of the millennium a Baptist holds, he holds these things in common. Without them, we would not be faithful to the Bible.

Christ will return personally, visibly and bodily. The angels told the disciples at the ascension, "This same Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will so come in like manner as you saw Him go into heaven" (Acts 1:11). His coming is called a "blessed hope" for believers (Titus 2:13). See also 1 Thessalonians 4:16 and Revelation 1:7. His return is not a spiritual feeling or the progress of the church, and it is not a symbol for death.

The dead will be raised. Christ is the firstfruits, and those who are His will be raised at His coming (1 Corinthians 15:20-23, 51-52). Jesus said that all who are in the graves will hear His voice, some to the resurrection of life and some to the resurrection of condemnation (John 5:28-29). The resurrection body is real and glorified (Philippians 3:20-21).

There will be a final judgment. Every person will stand before Christ (2 Corinthians 5:10; Romans 14:10-12). Revelation 20:11-15 describes the great white throne. Jesus Himself taught that the final division will be between eternal life and eternal punishment (Matthew 25:31-46).

The eternal state. The righteous will live forever with the Lord in a new heaven and a new earth, where God will wipe away every tear (Revelation 21:1-4; 2 Peter 3:13). The unrighteous will be separated from God for ever in hell.

The state of believers who die before the Lord returns. Paul says to be absent from the body is to be at home with the Lord, and that to depart and be with Christ is far better (2 Corinthians 5:8; Philippians 1:23). Believers who die are with Christ, awaiting the resurrection of the body.

These truths are the center of this unit. They are the believer's comfort in grief (1 Thessalonians 4:13-18), and they are the church's motive for holy living and for mission.

What Baptist Confessions Say

The Baptist Faith and Message (2000), Article X, says that God will bring the world and history to their appointed end; that the Lord Jesus Christ will return personally and visibly in glory; that the dead will be raised; that Christ will judge all people in righteousness; that the unrighteous will be consigned to hell, the place of everlasting punishment; and that the righteous in their resurrected and glorified bodies will receive their reward and will dwell forever in heaven with the Lord. It does not say whether Christ will return before or after a millennium, or whether the believers will be taken up before a tribulation. The Second London Confession (1689) and the New Hampshire Confession (1833) also teach the resurrection and the final judgment, and they do not teach a particular scheme of the millennium. The Baptist confessions therefore leave open the questions on which Bible-believing Christians have differed.

The Key Text and the Question

Most of the debate arises from Revelation 20:1-6. John sees an angel bind Satan for a thousand years. He sees thrones, and those who had been martyred "lived and reigned with Christ for a thousand years." This is called the "first resurrection." The rest of the dead do not live until the thousand years are finished. Then Satan is released for a short time, and the final judgment follows (20:7-15). The question is: what is this thousand years, when is it, and does Christ return before it or after it?

The Main Views

Historic premillennialism

Premillennialists believe that Christ returns before the millennium. In the historic view, the church will pass through a time of great tribulation under the Antichrist. Christ then returns, raises the believers who have died, and gathers the living. He defeats Satan and reigns on the earth for a thousand years, a real period before the final judgment. After this, Satan is released for a brief rebellion and the final judgment and the new heavens and the new earth follow.

Supporters point out that some early church writers, such as Justin Martyr and Irenaeus, taught a future earthly reign of Christ. They hold that Revelation 20 reads most naturally as a sequence: Christ returns (19:11-21), Satan is bound, the saints reign, and there is a first and a second resurrection. They argue that "lived" in 20:4 and "live again" in 20:5 are the same verb, and that both should be understood as bodily resurrection.

Dispensational premillennialism

Dispensationalists also believe in a literal thousand-year kingdom after Christ returns. They add a sharp distinction between Israel and the church, as two peoples in God's plan. Many teach that the church will be taken up to meet the Lord before a seven-year tribulation (the "pretribulation rapture"), and that Christ then returns with His church to reign, with Israel having a central role. This system was shaped by John Nelson Darby in the 1800s and was spread widely by the Scofield Reference Bible (1909). It is common among many independent and fundamental Baptists, and also among many Southern Baptists and others. Dispensationalists base their views on a consistent reading of the prophecies about Israel in Daniel and the prophets, and on 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 and 1 Corinthians 15:51-52. They answer that the system rests on those texts and not on a late date.

Within premillennialism, believers also disagree about when the rapture takes place: before the tribulation, in the middle, at the end (posttribulation), or at the outpouring of God's wrath. We may love and cooperate with each other while disagreeing.

Amillennialism

Amillennialists believe that the thousand years are not a future earthly reign. Revelation is a book of visions full of symbols, and the number "a thousand" is symbolic of a long period. They hold that the thousand years is the present age between the first and second comings of Christ. Satan was bound in the sense that he cannot now stop the gospel from reaching the nations (see Matthew 12:28-29; Colossians 2:15). The saints who died reign with Christ in heaven. The "first resurrection" is understood as either the new birth or the believer's being with Christ at death. At the end, Christ returns, there is one general resurrection and one judgment, and the eternal state begins. Amillennialism is the view of Augustine in The City of God and of most Reformation leaders. It is held by many Reformed Baptists and other Baptists today. Its supporters point out that other New Testament passages join the resurrection of the just and unjust, and the return of Christ and the judgment, in a single day (John 5:28-29; Matthew 25:31-46).

Postmillennialism

Postmillennialists believe that Christ will return after the millennium. They expect that the gospel will have great success in the world, so that a long age of peace and righteousness will come before He returns. Some Baptist leaders of the 1800s, caught up in the spread of missions, held hopes of this kind. Fewer hold it today. Supporters cite the Great Commission (Matthew 28:18-20), the parables of the mustard seed and the leaven (Matthew 13:31-33), and the promise that the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord (Isaiah 11:9). Critics, including many Baptists, answer that the New Testament also warns of growing opposition before the end (2 Timothy 3:1-5; Matthew 24:9-14), and that two world wars and continued persecution have made the view harder to hold.

Questions About Israel, the Rapture and the Tribulation

Three other questions arise within these views.

Israel. Paul writes that "all Israel will be saved" (Romans 11:25-26). Some Baptists understand this to mean that the Jewish people as a nation will turn to Christ in the future. Others understand "Israel" as the whole people of God, Jew and Gentile, or as the elect of Israel gathered over the whole age. All Baptists agree that God has not forgotten the Jewish people (Romans 11:1), that every Jew needs Christ as every Gentile does, and that hatred of Jews is a sin.

The rapture. Paul writes that the dead in Christ will rise first, and then the living believers will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17). All agree on this. The question is whether this happens before the tribulation, or at the single return of Christ.

The tribulation and the Antichrist. Jesus spoke of a great tribulation (Matthew 24:21), and Paul of a man of lawlessness (2 Thessalonians 2:3-4). Baptists differ on whether these are future, partly fulfilled, or both.

Objections and Baptist Answers

Objection 1: If Baptists cannot agree on the millennium, then they have no firm doctrine of the last things.

Our answer. We have a firm doctrine on what every confession teaches: the return, resurrection, judgment and eternal state. The millennium is a question of how to fit the parts of Revelation 20 together. Faithful Bible teachers have differed on this from the early church. A church that makes a secondary matter a test of fellowship has made a doctrine more important than God did.

Objection 2: The pretribulation rapture is a new idea from the 1800s, and premillennial charts have misled many.

Some critics, including Baptists, say that no one taught the pretribulation rapture before the 1800s and that predictions have often failed.

Dispensational answer. Dispensationalists respond that the doctrine rests on the biblical texts, not on the date it was systematized, and that doctrine may be recovered by renewed study of Scripture.

Baptist counsel. Each side should hear the other. Charts and timelines are the work of men and cannot be placed above the Word. Whatever we believe about the order of events, we do not set dates.

Objection 3: A literal reading of Revelation 20 requires premillennialism; the other views "spiritualize" the Bible.

Amillennial answer. Revelation announces that it is made known by signs (Revelation 1:1), and its other numbers, beasts and chains are plainly symbolic. To read a symbolic book according to its type is to read it plainly. Premillennialists respond that they also recognize symbols, but that the chronology and the bodily nature of the resurrection in chapter 20 point to a real earthly reign.

Objection 4: The doctrine of eternal punishment is cruel, and some evangelicals teach that the lost will simply cease to exist.

Our answer. Most conservative Baptists hold, with Article X, that the unrighteous face everlasting punishment. Jesus set eternal life and eternal punishment side by side in the same verse (Matthew 25:46), and Revelation speaks of torment that continues (Revelation 14:11; 20:10). We speak of it with sorrow, not with relish, and we hold that it strengthens the urgency of the gospel. Some thoughtful evangelicals hold a different view, called conditional immortality, but we do not find it in the text.

Teaching the Last Things Wisely

First, begin with the common hope. Preach the return of Christ, the resurrection and the judgment as the believer's comfort and the sinner's warning.

Second, give no dates. Jesus said, "But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but My Father only" (Matthew 24:36). He told the disciples it was not for them to know the times or seasons (Acts 1:7).

Third, let the hope produce what the Bible says it produces: watchfulness (Matthew 24:42), purity (1 John 3:3), comfort (1 Thessalonians 4:18) and mission (Matthew 24:14).

Fourth, be fair in the pulpit. If you hold a view, you may teach it as your own, with reasons, and tell the church that other Baptists hold other views.

Pastoral Application

A visiting speaker comes to a small Baptist church with a large chart and says that Christ will return within three years. He tells the church that those who disagree are asleep. Two elderly members, who lost a spouse in the past year, come to the pastor afraid. One of them asks: "Will we all be taken before the tribulation? Is my husband in heaven now?"

First, the pastor comforts them from the common hope. He opens 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 and 2 Corinthians 5:8 and tells them that believers who have died are with Christ and will rise at His coming.

Second, he corrects the date-setting gently, using Matthew 24:36 and Acts 1:7, without attacking the guest.

Third, he tells the members that sincere Baptists hold different views on the order of end-time events, and that the church will study the question openly in a class, without a requirement to agree.

Fourth, he redirects the church to what the Lord commands while waiting: to watch, to love, and to give the gospel to every person.

Summary

All conservative Baptists share the same hope: Christ will return personally, visibly and bodily; the dead will be raised; every person will be judged; the righteous will dwell forever with the Lord in a new heaven and earth; and the unrighteous will face everlasting punishment. The Baptist Faith and Message (2000), Article X, states this hope and leaves the millennium open. Baptists hold four main views of the thousand years of Revelation 20: historic premillennial, dispensational premillennial, amillennial and postmillennial. They also differ on Israel, the rapture and the tribulation. Each position has serious Bible students behind it, and this course does not make any one of them the Baptist position. The wise pastor begins with the common hope, sets no dates, teaches his own view humbly, and keeps the church focused on watchfulness, holiness, comfort and mission.

Further Reading

• The Baptist Faith and Message (2000), Article X.

• The Second London Confession (1689) and the New Hampshire Confession (1833), on the resurrection and the last judgment.

• Augustine, The City of God, Book 20, a primary source for the amillennial reading.

• John L. Dagg, Manual of Theology (1857).

• Garrett, Baptist Theology (2009).

• Hobbs, The Baptist Faith and Message (1971).

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