Eschatological Pragmatism Scenarios

Koot van wyk (DLitt et Phil; ThD)

Visiting Professor

Department of Liberal Arts Education

Kyungpook National University

Sangju Campus

Conjoint lecturer of Avondale College

Australia

Disclaimer: The views expressed here about Islam Eschatology is coming directly from the 1895 source and he was not an Adventist. The information is not taken from any official Adventist site and is only the private views of this author. The reader needs to read with discernment. The host of this site or any of their affiliates do not necessarily agree with the personal views expressed here.

Seventh-day Adventists and also other Christian denominations are reading the text in Matthew 24 “and this gospel will be preached unto the ends of the earth and then the end will come” in such a way that should we participate in spreading the gospel across the globe, the end will come faster. However, there are some factors to be kept in mind. It is possible that the command extends majorly for the areas of the clay in the feet and not for the iron in the feet. Daniel 2 had the last empire as mixed with clay and iron in the feet of the chronological empires image. This means that democracy run countries as religious liberation honored countries but iron countries are those run by iron-fist domination and dictatorships. They reject religion as the opium of the people and feel threatened by it. They do not follow the ethical system of the biblical code or code of Jesus or Paul or any of the disciples. They prefer a Fletcher “situational ethics” system where you can kill if it will save, serve or improve the lives of the majority of people. They operate with the system of “Robin Hoodism” where they steal from the rich and give to the poor or help themselves as well in between.

Eschatology means the doctrine or ideas of the last days. Pragmatism means carrying out or make the ideas get active by actually going out to make it happen. It is not just sophistry but practicing what you preach.

This is a fundamental principle in Seventh-day Adventism that you have to practice what you preach.

Eschatology for Adventists means that God has His time and nothing that we can do can hasten the day. It means that certain signals will inaugurate the coming of Christ. There will be a laxity in the churches followed by a deception and drop-out. The church will be like sleeping saints or the ten virgins. Then the gospel would have reached the whole earth in the sense that it went to every country but the Holy Spirit will be poured out as Latter Rain event in such enormity that the whole world will be filled with the Spirit and all will proclaim the name of the Lord. Even in the dictatorial countries it will happen, despite their rejection of religion in any form. However, if the character and integrity of the person lacks majorly, they will not remain faithful or true to this final call for salvation and hardened in hearts many will disappoint the Holy Spirit and in a lost state will become fierce enemies of the faithful so that the Time of Trouble arrives. Plaques of God will fall on the world and the unfaithful will blame the faithful for the plaques and disasters so that global persecution will kick in. Every phase of the events were described by the prophets in pockets of information and one has to use the correct set of interpretation rules to park the information at the right angle in this scheme of events to get the overall picture. Most scholars today is sold out to systems like preterism which is an interpretation model that locks the bible prophecy up for the time it was written and a past given period. The bible is a closed book for them as far as modern times are concerned and what it means is more important than what it meant. Not interested any longer.

Adventism does not follow this preteristic model per se but preterism do play a role when the biblical passage calls explicitly for it.

Adventism is the name from Advent meaning the Second Coming of the Messiah or Jesus. He will come from Heaven with all His angels. He does not come to judge since His judgment of the faithful is done during the Investigative Judgment that started in 1844, calculated as year-day principle from Daniel 8:14 starting in 457 BCE (Ezra 7) stretching all the way to 1844 which kicked in Christ second phase of His ministry, namely moving from the Holies (book of Hebrews) to the Most Holy (as the High-Priest typologically in the Old Testament had to do on the Day of Atonement). The Judgment has to be before the Second Coming because Christ has to reward His saints and reward can only follow a complete process of Heavenly Jurisdiction. That is why Christ said that saints on earth do not come into the judgment. He is now our Advocate in Heaven on our behalf (book of Hebrews). The role of the Adventist church is to convert people back to the bible, back to the Seventh-day Sabbath, that was neglected due to Sunday substitution of His Holy Day to the their Holy Day, which is a false Holy Day. It is an act of Law breaking and one commandment broken is the same as all broken. Thus the preaching of a return to the Torah of the Lord and keeping the right Sabbath, coupled with a correct understanding of the process of Heavenly Judgment or the Sanctuary Message in Heaven in the functions of Christ, helps Adventism to be the Elijah or fourth Elijah since the Third one was from 1844 (the second one was John the Baptist according to Christ). Elijah or the spirit of Elijah will be this preaching and calling upon wayward people to return to the Lord as Maleachi 4 has promised. In Adventism there is no final war in which their members or any saints need to take place. The Battle of Armegeddon is God’s war and not a human construct. The outcome is a victory for the universe and God and the results will benefit man but man does nothing but just be the audience and onlookers. Militancy has no space in Adventism and a Holy War logic does not fit Adventist theology. Even Christ the Warrior Messiah will not use weapons to fight at the Last War with Evil and Satan but will only speak with creative power words and the extinction will happen.

The Jews also have an Eschatology or doctrine of the Last Days. Their views are multiple and not always coherent in one set of data. Some believes that two Messiah’s will come, namely, one soft Messiah or son of Joseph and a strong Messiah the son of Levi. The Messiah will come during difficult times.

The Messiah of the Jews is a human that will be a fighting Warrior on earth. Adventism, contrary to Judaism and contrary to Islam, holds that the Messiah is a God-divine-human combination that will come from heaven and He alone will fight, not as His second Coming [Jewish first coming] but after a 1000 years when the Executive Judgment will take place (according to Adventism). There is no militant help or earthly militant forces prepared to assist Christ in carrying out His task as the Warrior Messiah. This Holy War has all saints safely in Zion (according to Joel) and the evil on earth and the war is by His mouth, or words executed.

Currently in July 2014, in Iraq, a group that calls themselves ISIS is fighting to set up a Kaliph that defies national borders of modern times and that will stretch from Syria to Iraq. The Sunny Muslims are mainly involved in this action. The Al-Qaida Muslims fought a jihad of Holy War with the West and their allies. This group, ISIS is even prepared to fight the Al-Qaida since their intention is to pragmatically set up a Muslim world (religiously) as they understand it in fundamental Muslim Eschatology.

The book by a Colonial Times author, Thomas Patrick Hughes, A Dictionary of Islam (London: W. H. Allen and Co., 1895, describes vividly and with Koran support the views of the “Last Days” in Islam.  

Under the article “Resurrection” there are valuable information making sense of what is going on currently in Iraq.

Islam is expecting certain signals to happen in the Last Days (eschatology).

1. The Date of the Last Day is also a secret as to the exact timing, just like Christianity. We must know that Jewish scholars who have investigated Judaism’s view of Eschatology and Christian view of Eschatology as well as the Muslim view of Eschatology, indicate that the Muslim code is a conglomerate of mixed traditions taken from both as well as added data from heathenism and other streams of thought existing in the mid-seventh century.

2. In Islam there will be a decay of faith. It is similar in Christianity expressed earlier than Islam.

3. Islam eschatology holds that the meanest people will advance to eminent dignity.

4. Also a signal of the End-time in Islam Eschatology is that there will be war with the Greeks and Romans. The war with the Romans is interpreted in Adventism to be the war of the Holy Roman Empire between 538-1798 when Napoleon’s general Berthier arrested the pope, a period of persecution of the saints as described in the Bible as 1260 days or years based on the year-day principle. Of course the Roman empire did not cease to exist after that day since modern jurisprudence is based by enlarge on Roman laws and institutions and also, the Roman Catholic Church are using the Roman Jurisprudence of Justinian with pride and as major source.

5. Another signal in Islam is that there will be great distress in the world. The Adventist scenario or the biblical scenario as spelled out by Jesus in a number of places like Matthew 24 indicates the same situation.

6. What is interesting is that Islam believes that the provinces of Syria and Iraq will refuse to pay their tribute and will thus be rebellious in the Last Day. This is very significant in the light of the ISIS objectives in July of 2014. ISIS is actualizing an eschatological signal of Islam’s Eschatology here.

7. The buildings of Medina will reach to Mecca.

   Then there are a set of greater signs to follow:

1. The sun will rise from the west?

2. According to Islam Eschatology, there will appear the Dabbatu al’Arz or “beast from the earth”. The beast will appear at Mecca or on a nearby Mountain. It will be a composite beast with the head of a bull the eyes of a dog and the ears of an Elephant and so on. He will bring the rod of Moses and wisdom of Solomon and will be so swift that none can overtake her. The beast will strike believers on the face and mark them as “believers” and strike again and mark those as “infidels”. The beast will demonstrate the vanity of all religions except Islam and to speak Arabic.

3. Islam Eschatology states that there will be the taking of the Greeks and Romans and Constantinople will follow in which they will divide the spoil and then the news of the Antichrist will be heard. One should probably understand the Middle Age wars surrounding these areas as attempts back then to pragmatically make Islam Eschatology to work?

4. The Antichrist is called in Islam Eschatology al-Masihu ‘d-Dajjal “the false or lying Christ”. He will be one-eyed and appear first between Syria and Iraq. He will ride a white ass and will be followed by 70 000 Jews and will continue for 40 days. He will destroy all places except Mecca and Medina which will be guarded by angels. He will be destroyed by Jesus who will meet him at the gate of Lud. This understanding in Islam is very important for Christian Eschatology. Christ said on earth that when they will say at the end time, “here is Christ” or “there is Jesus” do not believe and do not go. If ISIS is continuing their actualization of Islam Eschatology, the day will come when they will proclaim that Jesus is at Lud.

5. Jesus will come on the east of Damascus near the White Tower when all the people come back from taking Constantinople. If Istanbul is Constantinople then one may expect a couple of Arab springs in that area to actualize Islam Eschatology in future? “He is to embrace the Muhammedan religion, marry a wife, get children, kill the Antichrist, and at length die after forty years” (Hughes 1895: 540). He will be buried in Medina and there will be a great security on earth when lions and camels and bears and sheep shall live in peace. It is easy to see Isaiah sources here applied to Jesus.

6. There will be a war with the Jews and the Mohammedans will make a big slaughter (Hughes 1895: 540).

7. The Gog and Magog = Yaju and Ma’juj will appear and past the lake of Tiberias and go to Jerusalem to the distress of Jesus and His companions. He will order God to destroy them and the Muslims will destroy their arrows for seven years. God will then send a man to cleanse the earth and make it fertile. The source of the New Earth newly created in Revelation 20-21 is relevant here.

8. Smoke over the earth.

9. Eclipse of the Moon.

10. A period of 100 years ignorance to come after the wind from God will sweep away all faithful people.

11. Ethiopians will destroy the Kabah at Mecca.

12. Then there is the concept in Islam Eschatology of the coming of the al-Mahdi whom Islam is saying must precede the Resurrection. Mohammed prophesied that one of his own family will rule the Arabians before the End. The Shiah Muslims believes that he will be the last of the twelve Imams.

13. According to Islam Eschatology, just before the Resurrection there will be a trumpet sound and it will sound three times, according to Islam Eschatology. One cannot miss the Pauline source here.

    Our comment is that the Islam Eschatology is a crude “agenda” for ISIS and that the places mentioned in the list will find their enactment down the line of future history. For Jesus to come in Damascus, cooperation between Catholicism and Islam will be necessary since they will have to sanction what Islam is saying. Authentication by the pope of Jesus at Damascus will be a requirement not mentioned by Mohammed but in our view probably a future reality to expect. It is also in my view, the authentication that they are going to get. For the sake of world peace and for the sake of gain in whatever form imagined, they will “go along” with the concepts expected by Islam.