Nick Thompson reviews ‘The Dragon’s Prophecy: Israel, the Dark Resurrection, and the End of Days’, by Jonathan Cahn (2024)

Combatting the Enemy’s Twin Tactics

An examination of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in the light of Scripture

The ten horns of Daniel’s beast vision have been and gone

Covid-19 is not the main event – it’s a curtain-raiser

Paul Luckraft reviews ‘Charts of Bible Prophecy’ by HW House and R Price (2003, Zondervan)

Peter Sammons reviews ‘Understanding Revelation’ by Paul Langham (CPI, 2005)

Paul Luckraft reviews ‘A New Heaven and a New Earth’ by J Richard Middleton (Baker Academic, 2014).

In writing this book, the author has performed a great service for scholars, clergy and lay people alike, by providing a comprehensive analysis of what the Bible teaches on the final destiny of the redeemed.  

Middleton’s contention is that the traditional view that we ‘die and go to heaven’ does not have its origin in the biblical texts rather it comes from the Greek thinking that permeated Christian doctrine from the 2^nd Century onwards. His aim is to replace this error with the more Hebraic understanding of how God’s plan to redeem the whole of Creation culminates in a new heaven and a new earth.

Accessible Theology

After a preface and an excellent opening chapter which serves as an introduction, the book divides into five parts containing a further 11 chapters. The book concludes with a substantial appendix entitled ‘Whatever happened to the new earth?’ in which the author attempts a historical review of how the biblical teaching of a redeemed cosmos had to battle against other views which emerged during the course of Christian history, views which promoted an eternal bodiless existence in an ethereal realm.

Finally, the book is well indexed both in terms of subjects and scriptures.

The first part, ‘From Creation to Eschaton’, sets up the plot of the biblical story, and is followed by a sections on ‘Holistic Salvation in the Old Testament’ and ‘The New Testament’s Vision of Cosmic Renewal’. Don’t be put off by these rather theological titles. There is nothing stuffy or overly academic in the way he writes.

Middleton’s contention is that the traditional view that we ‘die and go to heaven’ does not have its origin in the biblical texts.

Part 4 examines ‘Problem Texts for Holistic Eschatology’ before in the final part, ‘The Ethics of the Kingdom’, the author basically asks ‘So what?’ How does this make a difference to the individual Christian life and the way the Church should operate in the world today?

Separating Truth from Myth

The author is a lecturer and professor of theology, but his writing style suggests he is more than capable of putting things across in a way that is accessible to anyone keen to listen and learn.

He tells in an amusing way how he frequently offers a monetary reward to anyone in his classes who can “find even one passage in the New Testament that clearly said Christians would live in heaven forever or that heaven was the final home of the righteous” (p14). He is happy to report that he still has all his money. “No one has ever produced such a text, because there simply are none in the Bible” (p14).

For the author the key question is, “Where, then, did the idea of ‘going to heaven’ come from? And how did this otherworldly destiny displace the biblical teaching of the renewal of the earth and end up dominating popular Christian eschatology?” (p30).

The answer, he suggests, lies in the innovative teaching of Plato in the late 5^th and early 4^th Centuries BC. This Gnostic emphasis on ‘physical bad, spiritual good’ laid the foundation for redemption being simply an escape policy from a material existence into an other-worldly ‘heaven’.

One eye-opening section of the book makes us realise how our Christian songs (hymns, carols and modern choruses) have, perhaps unwittingly, endorsed this. Wesley’s Love Divine, All Loves Excelling tells us we will be “Changed from glory into glory, Till in heaven we take our place”. In one of our favourite carols, Away in a Manger, we sing “And fit us for Heaven, to live with Thee there”.

It was Plato who laid the foundation for redemption being simply an escape policy from a material existence into an other-worldly ‘heaven’.

What Happens When We Die?

The author does take seriously the question of whether we go to heaven temporarily once we die. He asserts that the hope of a period of blessedness while awaiting our new bodies does not contradict the final hope of being part of a restored cosmos.

He also tackles the thorny question of the rapture, cutting through the speculation and confusion of more recent times and providing a simple explanation of what it meant in biblical times.

Overall there is much in this book to commend. It promotes a view of God who is committed to his original plan and its full restoration. It shows how eternity in a new body, in a new heaven and a new earth, is a better hope to live for, a better future to move toward, and a better Gospel to proclaim.

The author’s exegesis of Biblical passages is sound and compelling. The result of his considerable labours is a resource that will inform, inspire and correct. Highly commended.

A New Heaven and a New Earth: Reclaiming Biblical Eschatology (332 pages, paperback) is available on Amazon for £11.42. Also on Kindle.

Patricia Higton looks at the Prophet Daniel.

Daniel and his three friends, Jews of the nobility in exile, had been chosen for high position in the service of Nebuchadnezzar, the pagan Babylonian emperor, who autocratically ruled the world of the Middle East.

It would have been understandable if the four young men had curried favour with the king, who had power of life and death over his subjects and captives. The first test came early on in their training for service, when food from the royal table was set before them. Every good Jew knew that this raised issues of defilement and idolatry.

It would have been so easy to compromise, but Daniel clearly realised that here was a question of lordship -was he primarily a servant of the emperor, or of the God of Heaven and Earth? He passed the test, perhaps with no idea that God was training him for higher things.

Sadly, many fall at the first hurdle and can only limp along after that unless they repent and seek the Lord afresh. So few Christians, who are highly placed in government, or the world of business and finance, or senior positions in the professions, make a real impact for the Lord. Doubtless those who do make choices early on to follow God's way, resisting all pressure to compromise, let alone conform to our post-Christian society.

God Honours Obedience

In two later, separate, incidents, it seemed that all was lost for Daniel and his friends. Their contemporaries must have wondered what was the point of sticking to principle, if the end was to be a den of lions or a fiery furnace. But the words of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego echo down through the centuries: "If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to save us from it, and he will rescue us from your hand, O King. But even if he does not, we want you to know, O King, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up."

Daniel's first test came early on in his training for service: was he primarily a servant of the emperor, or of the God of Heaven and Earth?

In their case, one "like a son of the gods" first came to them in the midst of the furnace, before they were rescued from it (Dan 3:17, 18, 25-28). In the New Testament account of the early Church and in stories of persecuted Christians down to the present day, there have been similar tales of deliverance. There are also accounts of many thousands who were not delivered in this life, but whose sacrifice was not in vain. The blood of the martyrs has continually been the seed of the Church.

Although we know from Scripture that God always honours faith and obedience, he never blesses compromise. It is a cause for shame that there are so few Christian leaders, particularly in the comfortable Western Church, who are prepared to uphold biblical principles, even at cost to their reputation and aware that there may be no vindication until the next life.

God's Sovereign Purpose

The principal theme of the book of Daniel is God's sovereignty over the rise and fall of kings and nations. It is helpful to question why God should have given such highly detailed and accurate messages about the future, either to Daniel directly, or to the emperors for Daniel to interpret. The answer must surely be that these powerful rulers were being given an opportunity to revere God, who so impressed them as "the Lord of kings and a revealer of mysteries" (Dan 2:47). God is a God of mercy and compassion, who withholds just judgment when men repent.

Later, Paul was to take the Gospel of salvation to the Roman Empire, though it would be nearly 300 years before an emperor responded positively. For since the time of Christ, God's purpose has been that "this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come" (Matt 24:14). Primarily, the world needs the message of the Gospel of salvation and judgment.

Contemporary prophetic messages will be delivered principally to the Church, and will be concerned with the Church or the world. But the days are coming when it will be important for prophets to interpret to the world as well as the Church prophecy in Scripture as yet unfulfilled, including that found in the books of Daniel and Revelation.

We know from Scripture that God always honours faith and obedience, but he never blesses compromise.

As we see nation after nation in the post-Cold War world now threatened less by nuclear annihilation than by terrorism or internal disintegration, we learn from the book of Daniel that God has been and is totally in control of all historical and future events. He knows the end from the beginning. Events which may seem arbitrary to us are turned by the Creator, Saviour and Judge of the whole world to serve his purposes, whether of salvation or judgment.

Belshazzar, who set himself up against the Lord of Heaven, was weighed on the scales and found wanting. His kingdom divided and given to the Medes and Persians (Dan 5:26-31). Nebuchadnezzar, on the other hand, was told that his kingdom would be restored when he acknowledged that heaven rules (Dan 4:26).

Daniel's Intercession

God's intention was not for his people to stand by, helplessly watching events unfold. We have a significant part to play. Daniel was used by God to challenge those in authority, not only in the gifts of interpretation and prophecy, but also in intercession, to pray prophetic scriptures into being. He had been in training, praying three times a day (Dan 6:10) even at risk to his life (Dan 6:13), but it is in chapter 9 that we see the depth of his intercession.

This impassioned prayer of penitence and petition undoubtedly played a part in the eventual deliverance of Daniel's people from exile. Many praying people have since taken up his cry, "O Lord, listen! O Lord, forgive! O Lord, hear and act! For your sake, O my God, do not delay, because your city and your people bear your name" (Dan 9:19).

But intercessory prayers can be less effective if they are not based on a true diagnosis of the severity of a situation leading to confession of corporate sin. By contrast, Daniel's prayers were so effective that Gabriel himself was sent to answer them.

The End Times

Much of the book of Daniel is taken up with prophecies about the empires of Babylonia, Medo-Persia, Greece and Rome. But throughout it all is woven amazing insight about the rule or kingdom of God, which begins as a hewn rock but becomes a huge mountain, filling the earth (Dan 2:35).

Even as we have been made aware of the sovereign rule of God over nations, so from first to last the message of Daniel is that God's sovereignty, far from being limited to the rise and fall of earthly kingdoms (Dan 4:32), in fact extends to the establishment of a Divine kingdom that will never be destroyed (Dan 2:44). It is an eternal dominion, enduring from generation to generation (Dan 4:34-35).

Although believers may now be marginalised or even persecuted, the future holds out the certain hope that "the sovereignty, power and greatness of the kingdoms under the whole heavens will be handed over to the saints, the people of the Most High" (Dan 7:27). Again, "The saints of the Most High will receive the kingdom and will possess it for ever" (Dan 7:18). Sadly, this will come about only after a time of intense persecution and seeming defeat by "the horn" (Dan 7:21), a prophecy which many believe to have had an initial fulfilment in the persecution of Antiochus Epiphanes (168-164 BC) who tried to destroy the Jewish religion.

God's intention is not for his people to stand by, helplessly watching events unfold. We have a significant part to play.

The Book of Daniel helps us at this point to understand that there is frequently both a partial fulfilment of prophecy which is now history, and one which is yet to come. This comprehension helps us in interpreting, for example, the predictions of Jesus or those in the Book of Revelation. We learn that a time of distress or tribulation is yet to come, before the end of all things, when "multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will wake: some-to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt" (Rev 12:2).

Yet to Come

We would be foolish to ignore any prophecy as yet unfulfilled, because those which have come to pass show the predictions in Daniel to be astonishingly accurate.
Unable to believe in such accurate prophecy, some argue for a late date for Daniel but cannot actually push that date to later than the mid-second century BC. That still leaves such sceptics to explain prophecies about the Roman Empire and, of course, about Christ. There is an amazing prophecy about his coming and his death. Many scholars believe that the timescale incorporated in this prediction is literal, not symbolic, and was perfectly fulfilled (Dan 9:24-26).

There is also a specific prophecy of the second coming in Daniel 7:13, where we are given an awesome glimpse of the future:

In my vision of the night, I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all peoples, nations and men of every language worshipped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.

Finally, we may note a verse that can encourage us today to witness to our faith as much as it did nearly 2,500 years ago: "Those who lead many to righteousness" (Dan 12:3) will shine "like the stars for ever and ever."

Originally published in Prophecy Today, Vol 12 No 1, January 1996. Revised November 2016.

Clifford Denton begins a new teaching series on this controversial topic.

Much is said of the end times, and rightly so. Whether in veiled terms or in clear statements, the theme runs right through the Bible. We must study what the Bible says about the coming days as we seek to obey Jesus' command to watch and pray.

But the other side of this coin is that we must carefully and continually test our understanding. Often pre-emptive judgments about how to interpret some passages lead people to suggest watertight formulae for every step through the last years of Earth's history. The conflicting perspectives, timelines and interpretations have made the topic of the end times very divisive, segmenting Christians according to their views on pre-, post- and mid- tribulation rapture, the place of Israel, and questions about the millennial rule of Jesus. All this when events are rapidly proceeding in the world around us!

Whether in veiled terms or in clear statements, the theme of the 'end times' runs right through the Bible.

Careful Focus Needed

This division often means that the subject is relegated to the background. Instead, emphasis is put on other fundamentals of the faith which unite us all, including the task of evangelism we all must accomplish together.

Yet, as the days move forward and evident signs of the end increase, it is surely time to find a way to walk in unity into that future, not compromising but watching and praying together. Peter's question, asked so long ago, is still relevant today: "Since all these things will be dissolved, what manner of persons ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God...?" (2 Pet 3:12)

In this new series, we will seek to contribute to the task of establishing a careful focus on this subject. We invite our readers to take this journey with us and join in the discussion, praying afresh for the Lord's own guidance in this important matter.

Before we begin, it is important to establish our prime focus.

The Return of Messiah

With the biblical prophets to study, including the Book of Revelation, we can soon be immersed in discussions about the various signs of the times, their ordering and how they will impact our lives on Earth and beyond. But this is not the central issue.

When Jesus' disciples talked with him on the Mount of Olives prior to completion of his earthly ministry, they asked this question: "What will be the sign of your coming, and of the end of the age?" (Matt 24:3).

The conflicting perspectives, timelines and interpretations have made the topic of the end times very divisive – but no less important to study.

These were the men who had been with the Lord for the years of his earthly ministry and had grown to love him and rely on him. They realised that he was about to leave them and they did not want him to go. We all have this sort of experience when a loved one departs from this world, a bereavement, a deeply emotional time of personal loss, a desire to continue to be with the one we love.

Or we have the experience of a friend going somewhere else in this world, perhaps a family member leaving home or a friend moving away. We desire them to come back to us and renew those activities we love to do together. We hope for special times of coming together in the future, to share holidays or family times together around the meal table.

This helps us to understand what was in the heart of Jesus' disciples when they were soon to be left alone. They did not ask for a theology of the end times - but how they might be helped to prepare for the return of their Lord and Saviour – and personal friend.

This should be our priority too, as we study the end times. There will be enormous disruption both in this world and in the universe as a whole, but the focus is on the wonderful expectation of the Lord's return. The enormity of the signs that will precede the Lord's coming is the way God has chosen to emphasise the event of all events.

Jesus' disciples did not ask for a theology of the end times – their heart was to prepare for the return of their Lord, Saviour and Friend.

Getting Our Priorities in Order

Over the series we will be considering some of those signs and expectations – but before we begin, let us pause and ensure we have this priority in view. It is the same priority that lies at the heart of sharing the bread and wine of the Lord's Supper together – to remember his death until he comes (1 Cor 11:26). Nothing could be more central - and keeping our priorities centred on this will naturally keep us in focus on all other things.

The Lord's return is likened to the coming of a bridegroom. For those of us who are included in this wedding party we have the most wonderful fulfilment of our lives in view. For those who are asleep and not waiting with anticipation, instead of joy there is warning (Matt 25:1-13).

Let us pray about this as we go on to study those Scriptures that talk of his coming. Let us ensure our priorities are in order. Do you sense a prayer welling up?

...Come Lord Jesus! (Rev 22:20)

Next time: How to approach Scripture relating to the end times.

For other articles in this series, click here.