Eschatology — what happens at the end of time?

Eschatos is Greek for "last". Eschatology is the study of last things — and it is the area of theology where Christians argue most and communicate worst.

The way through is to separate what Scripture states plainly from what it leaves genuinely open.

What is not in dispute

Across every orthodox tradition — Catholic, Orthodox, Reformed, Lutheran, Anglican, Baptist, Pentecostal — five things are held in common. If you know only these, you know the substance.

One: Christ will return personally and visibly. "This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven" (Acts 1:11). Not a spiritual influence, not a symbol. "Behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him" (Revelation 1:7).

Two: the dead will be raised bodily. "An hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and come out, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgement" (John 5:28-29). Both groups. Everyone gets a body back.

Three: every person will be judged. "We must all appear before the judgement seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body" (2 Corinthians 5:10).

Four: there is a real and eternal division of outcomes. Jesus taught this more than anyone in Scripture (Matthew 25:46).

Five: creation will be renewed, not discarded. "Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth" (Revelation 21:1).

What is genuinely disputed

The millennium — the thousand years of Revelation 20.

• Premillennialism: Christ returns, then reigns on earth for a literal thousand years. Historically the most common view in the early church and in modern evangelicalism.
• Amillennialism: the thousand years is symbolic of the present church age, Christ reigning now from heaven. Held by Augustine, most of the Reformers, and most Catholic, Orthodox, Lutheran and Reformed Christians.
• Postmillennialism: the gospel gradually succeeds, producing a long era of righteousness, after which Christ returns. Common in the nineteenth century, less so after two world wars.

The rapture and the tribulation. Whether the church is removed before, during or after a final period of tribulation. The pre-tribulation view popular in modern evangelicalism dates largely from the 1830s and John Nelson Darby — which does not make it wrong, but is worth knowing when it is presented as the obvious plain reading.

Revelation's structure. Whether it is chronological or a series of overlapping cycles viewing the same period from different angles.

The correction most Christians need

Ask a congregation what the Christian hope is and most will say "going to heaven when you die."

That is not the New Testament's emphasis, and N. T. Wright has spent a career pointing this out. There is an intermediate state — "away from the body and at home with the Lord" (2 Corinthians 5:8), and Jesus tells the thief "today you will be with me in paradise" (Luke 23:43). That is real, and it is conscious, and it is good.

But it is not the destination. It is the waiting room.

The destination is resurrection into a renewed creation. Look at the direction of movement in Revelation 21: "I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God." It comes down. The whole biblical story ends where it began — God with humanity, in a physical world, made right.

This matters practically. If the material world is going to be discarded, then art, science, justice, craftsmanship and the care of the earth are at best distractions from soul-saving. If it is going to be redeemed, they are rehearsals. Paul's conclusion to the great resurrection chapter is exactly this: "Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labour is not in vain" (1 Corinthians 15:58).

Therefore — because of the resurrection. Your work is not in vain because it is not going to be incinerated.

The judgement

Revelation 20:11-15 gives the scene: a great white throne, books opened, "and the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to what they had done."

Two things are worth holding together. Justice will be perfect — every hidden cruelty, every unavenged wrong, addressed by a Judge who cannot be deceived or bribed. For anyone who has suffered injustice with no earthly remedy, this is not a threatening doctrine but the only real hope of resolution.

And for the believer, the verdict is already known. "There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus" (Romans 8:1). The Judge is the one who died in your place. Believers are still assessed for reward (1 Corinthians 3:12-15) but not for acquittal — that was settled at the cross.

Signs, and the abuse of them

Jesus lists wars, famines, earthquakes, false messiahs, persecution and apostasy — and then says something people consistently skip: "see that you are not alarmed, for this must take place, but the end is not yet. All these are but the beginning of the birth pains" (Matthew 24:6-8).

He is warning against exactly the reading his words are usually given. These are not a countdown clock. They are the ordinary conditions of the whole period between his ascension and his return, and Christians in every century have read their own crises as the final ones.

The one sign given a completion condition is the mission: "this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come" (Matthew 24:14).

Why any of it matters now

Every single time the New Testament teaches on the end, it draws a practical conclusion. Not one passage ends with a chart.

• Because he is coming: be ready (Matthew 24:44).
• Because everything will be dissolved: what sort of people ought you to be? (2 Peter 3:11).
• Because we shall be like him: everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself (1 John 3:3).
• Because the resurrection is real: your labour is not in vain (1 Corinthians 15:58).

The last prayer in the Bible is two words in Aramaic, preserved from the earliest church: Marana tha — "Our Lord, come" (1 Corinthians 16:22, Revelation 22:20).

Not "our Lord, explain the timetable." Come.