A Lesson from History (and the Bible): Don’t Attempt to Determine Christ’s Return

Guest post by Justin Alfred

Previous posts in this series:

• Part 1 – They Shall Not Escape
• Part 2 – How We Should Think About the Second Coming of Jesus
• Part 3 – Prophetic Promises and the Law
• Part 4 – Prophetic Promises from the Old Testament Prophets
• Part 5 – Prophetic Promises and the “Writings”
• Part 6 – The Dead Sea Scrolls on the First Coming of Jesus
• Part 7 – The Old Testament on the Second Coming of Jesus
• Part 8 – The New Testament on the Second Coming of Jesus (part 1)
• Part 9 – The New Testament on the Second Coming of Jesus (part 2)
• Part 10 – The New Testament on the Second Coming of Jesus (part 3)
• Part 11 – The New Testament on the Second Coming of Jesus (part 4)
• Part 12 – The New Testament on the Second Coming of Jesus (part 5)

Here’s a lesson from history (and the Bible!):

Don’t attempt to determine Christ’s return.

With regard to historical failures in attempting to determine Christ’s return, both church and secular history have a plethora of examples of such failed predictions. Allow me to point out just a few that are significant to us today, beginning with Augustine up to Y2K:

1. Montanus (emerged between ca. 156 – 178)

Under Montanus began what might be termed as the first Pentecostal/Charismatic revival of the ministry of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, but this revival was permeated through with misdirected teaching and self-focus by Montanus and his two prophetesses, Maximilla and Prisca. The study of Montanus is of great importance for us today, as we see many of the same misguided and pseudo-spiritual concepts that emerged in and through him present today in similar pseudo-spiritual offshoots stemming from the pentecostal/charismatic emphases (e.g., the emphasis on the prophetic utterances of people carrying as much or more weight than the Scripture, and a belief that if you reject their prophetic utterances, you are in turn rejecting God, etc.); however, we will focus on is their eschatological proclamations.

One of Montanus’ prophetesses proclaimed that the “Heavenly Jerusalem” was going to descend on the Phyrgian town of Pepuza (found in western Turkey today). She claimed that this would happen soon (Annette Reed, ed., Heavenly Realms and Earthly Realities in Late Antique Religions [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004], 148). The Church Historian Eusebius, although not mentioning per se the actual descent of the Heavenly Jerusalem onto Pepuza, did confirm the view held by Montanus that Pepuza would be renamed Jerusalem:

Apollonius also, a writer of the church when the so-called Montanus heresy was still flourishing in Phrygia, composed a refutation and published it as a separate work against them, proving word by word that their alleged prophecies are false and showing the true character of the life of the leaders of the heresy. Listen to the actual words which he uses about Montanus. “But the deeds and the teachings of this recent teacher show his character. It is he who taught the annulment of marriage, who enacted fasts, who gave the name of Jerusalem to Pepuza and Tymion, which are little towns in Phrygia, and wished to hold assemblies there from everywhere, who appointed collectors of money; who organized the receiving of gifts under the name of offerings, who provided salaries for those who preached his doctrine in order that its teaching might prevail through gluttony.” (G. P. Gould, ed., The Loeb Classical Library, Eusebius I [Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1926, reprint 1980], 487).

The point to be made about the first quote is that the misdirected and misguided interpretation of Scripture that people fall into in wanting to determine when Jesus is returning is nothing new. However, each time it occurs, it is fallacious. Even one of the most famous early Church Fathers, Tertullian (160 – 225), who helped to clarify and expound on the biblical doctrine of the Trinity, became a proponent of the Montanus movement. I point that out to show how that even a man of God such as Tertullian can be misled into misinterpreting current events as a sign of Christ’s immediate return by the strong desire for His return. However, Tertullian disagreed with the prophetesses’ claim that the Heavenly Jerusalem would be in Phrygia, but rather it would return over Judea, and he even claimed that pagan non-believers had seen a preliminary descent of the Heavenly Jerusalem:

But we do confess that a kingdom is promised to us upon the earth, although before heaven, only in another state of existence; inasmuch as it will be after the resurrection for a thousand years in the divinely-built city of Jerusalem, “let down from heaven,” which the apostle also calls “our mother from above;” and, while declaring that our ðïëßôåõìá, or citizenship, is in heaven, he predicates of it that it is really a city in heaven. This both Ezekiel had knowledge of and the Apostle John beheld. And the word of the new prophecy (the “new prophecy” mentioned here is the prophecy of the Montanists that Jesus is returning immediately, and the Heavenly Jerusalem will descend on Pepuza) which is a part of our belief, attests how it foretold that there would be for a sign a picture of this very city exhibited to view previous to its manifestation. This prophecy, indeed, has been very lately fulfilled in an expedition to the East. For it is evident from the testimony of even heathen witnesses, that in Judaea there was suspended in the sky a city early every morning for forty days. As the day advanced, the entire figure of its walls would wane gradually, and sometimes it would vanish instantly. We say that this city has been provided by God for receiving the saints on their resurrection, and refreshing them with the abundance of all really spiritual blessings, as a recompense for those which in the world we have either despised or lost; since it is both just and God-worthy that His servants should have their joy in the place where they have also suffered affliction for His name’s sake. Of the heavenly kingdom this is the process. After its thousand years are over, within which period is completed the resurrection of the saints, who rise sooner or later according to their deserts there will ensue the destruction of the world and the conflagration of all things at the judgment: we shall then be changed in a moment into the substance of angels, even by the investiture of an incorruptible nature, and so be removed to that kingdom in heaven of which we have now been treating, just as if it had not been predicted by the Creator, and as if it were proving Christ to belong to the other god and as if he were the first and sole revealer of it. But now learn that it has been, in fact, predicted by the Creator, and that even without prediction it has a claim upon our faith in respect of the Creator. (Alexander Roberts & James Donaldson, eds., The Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. III [Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, rep., 1986], 342-343)

Thus, what we see above with Tertullian is a man of intense faith and commitment to Christ, with an equally intense commitment to biblical truth, but who was spiritually, intellectually, and emotionally misdirected in his eschatological perspective.

2. Augustine (11/13/354 – 8/28/430)

Augustine is seen by many as the Early Church Father through whom evangelical theology began to emerge. With him, we begin to see what might be described as a systematization of theology that became in many venues the foundation of evangelical theology today (e.g., Luther, Calvin, Edwards, et al). However, here too, with one of the giants of the Early Church in its first five hundred years of existence, we see two very important things occurring. In his earlier years in a message from 1 Corinthians 4:5, Augustine seemed to be supporting the popular “sexta-/septamillennial” eschatological view held by many of his contemporaries, which emphasized the six days of creation as 6,000 years (embracing the LXX chronology, which was the longer one from the beginning of creation up to their day), and the seventh day was the day of rest, which represented for them the return of Christ within a very short period of time:

Christian chronographers generally divided human history into seven ages based on the seven days of creation, with each age lasting one thousand years (based on the belief that, for God, each day is as a thousand years). Their calculations seemed to confirm this chronology: Sextus Julius Africanus estimated that the world was created circa 5500 B.C.E. Eusebius put it around 5200. This would have placed the world of Augustine’s day well into the sixth age, with the seventh to begin in as few as a hundred years or less. Several questions naturally arose. What would be the nature of the “seventh age”? And what would happen when time ran out?

Some Christians, called millennialists or chiliasts, believed that the Apocalypse of John described this seventh age: it was a “Sabbath” when the dead would rise to reign with the returned Christ and Satan would be bound for a “thousand years.” They also took literally the thousand-year periods and believed that the seventh age would begin in the annus mundi 6000. In this view the Apocalypse could be very close indeed. The chronicler Hydatius, for example, placed it on 27 May 482.

Augustine likewise adopted the concept of the six ages of the human past, followed by a seventh “day of rest” (or Sabbath) and the Parousia (Gn. adv. Man. 23.35–24.42). He gave his clearest exposition in this regard in the City of God 22.30:

That will truly be the greatest of Sabbaths, a Sabbath that has no evening, the Sabbath that the Lord approved at the beginning of creation, where it says, “God rested on the seventh day from all his works … and God blessed the seventh day….” We ourselves shall become that seventh day … now restored and perfected by his greater grace we shall be still and at leisure for eternity…. Now if the epochs of history are reckoned as days, following the apparent temporal scheme of scripture, this Sabbath period will emerge more clearly as the seventh of these epochs. The first day is the first period, from Adam to the Flood, the second from the Flood to Abraham…. We now are in the sixth epoch…. After this present age God will rest, as it were, on the seventh day, and he will cause us, who are in the seventh day, to find our rest in him…. The seventh will be our Sabbath whose end will not be an evening, but the Lord’s Day, an eighth day, as it were, which is to last forever, a day consecrated to the resurrection of Christ….

In some of his earlier works Augustine himself showed some chiliastic tendencies, but after circa 400 he decisively parted company with the millennialists. (A. D. Fitzgerald, ed., Augustine through the Ages: An Encyclopedia, “Judgment, Last,” by R. W. Mathisen [Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1999], 476-477)

However, as is indicted above, Augustine began to see the unbiblical nature of thinking that one can calculate the return of Christ at a particular time according that current, eschatological approach, and the following message he gave shows his spiritual, mental, and emotional maturity in coming to that position:

Truly Jesus Himself shall extinguish by His presence that last persecution which is to be made by Antichrist. For so it is written, that “He shall slay him with the breath of His mouth, and empty him with the brightness of His presence.” ¹²⁵³ Isa. xi. 4; 2 Thess. i. 9 It is customary to ask, When shall that be? But this is quite unreasonable. For had it been profitable for us to know this, by whom could it better have been told than by God Himself, the Master, when the disciples questioned Him? For they were not silent when with Him, but inquired of Him, saying, “Lord, wilt Thou at this time present the kingdom to Israel, or when?”¹²⁵⁴ Acts i. 6, 7 But He said, “It is not for you to know the times, which the Father hath put in His own power.” When they got that answer, they had not at all questioned Him about the hour, or day, or year, but about the time. In vain, then, do we attempt to compute definitely the years that may remain to this world, when we may hear from the mouth of the Truth that it is not for us to know this. Yet some have said that four hundred, some five hundred, others a thousand years, may be completed from the ascension of the Lord up to His final coming. But to point out how each of them supports his own opinion would take too long, and is not necessary; for indeed they use human conjectures, and bring forward nothing certain from the authority of the canonical Scriptures. But on this subject He puts aside the figures of the calculators, and orders silence, who says, “It is not for you to know the times, which the Father hath put in His own power.” (Philip Schaff, ed., Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Vol. II [Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, rep., 1983], 394)

Thus, may the Lord do for us what He did for Augustine in causing us to grow spiritually, mentally, and emotionally in walking in the whole truth of Acts 1:6-8:

“⁶ And so when they had come together, they were asking Him, saying, “Lord, is it at this time You are restoring the kingdom to Israel?” ⁷ He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or epochs which the Father has fixed by His own authority; ⁸ but you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth.”

3. William Miller (1782-1849)

Miller was a Baptist minister who, in 1818, confessed his belief that Jesus was going to return in 1844. As he continued to study, he ultimately announced the results of his study and his personal conviction that Jesus was going to return in 1844. In August, 1831, he began public lectures regarding the return of Christ, and in 1832 he wrote a series of articles about his views. Miller gradually began to narrow the time frame down from a general time to actually predicting that Jesus would return on March 21, 1844. When nothing happened at that time, he then changed it to April 18, 1844, and that date too passed without incident. Then, a gentleman named Samuel Snow, a follower of Miller, predicted Jesus would return on October 22, 1844. Of course, that day too passed. Miller continued to believe Jesus’ coming was soon, and out of his teaching and error emerged the Seventh Day Adventists, who developed what is called the “Investigative Judgment” of professed believers by the Lord that began in 1844, and that is what they said actually began in 1844, not Jesus’ bodily return.

However, the consequence of Miller’s false and misdirected prophetic claims didn’t end with his death, but rather they became the “springboard” for other religious groups that would definitely fall under the category of theological misdirection, if not blatantly “heretical”:

It (i.e., the Watchtower movement – my note) was born at that time, not as an only child, but as part of a large family of Adventist denominations spawned by the Millerite movement of the early 1800s. William Miller was a Baptist lay preacher who, in 1816, began proclaiming that Christ would return in 1843. His predictions captured the imagination of thousands in Baptist and other mainline churches. Perhaps as many as 50,000 followers put their trust in Miller’s chronology and prepared to welcome the Lord while, as the appointed time approached, others watched nervously from a distance. Recalculations moved the promised second advent from March, 1843 to March, 1844, and then to October of that year. Alas, that date too passed uneventfully. After the “Disappointment of 1844” Miller’s following fell apart, with most of those who had looked to him returning to their respective churches before his death in 1849. Other disappointed followers kept the movement alive, although in fragmented form, and their activities eventually led to the formation of several sects under the broad heading of “Adventism.” These included the Advent Christian Church, the Life and Advent Union, the Seventh-Day Adventists, and various Second Adventist groups—one of which later split to form the Watch Tower movement. (D. A. Reed, Answering Jehovah’s Witnesses: Subject by subject, electronic ed. [Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1997]).

Thus, from this one, very serious misdirection and ignoring of the clear and scriptural admonitions of Matthew 24:36 and Acts 1:6-7 by one man, we see several groups emerge from his eschatological distortion of Scripture that have in turn further removed themselves from solid and biblical truth—the Jehovah’s Witnesses being the chief among them. What does this say to us about the dangers of theologically misdirected, eschatological emphases that we might both embrace and propagate to others?

To me, it says that we need to affirm, over and over again, that Jesus was exactly correct, and men are entirely wrong when they veer from the simple, and yet quite profound statements of Jesus in the above mentioned Scripture passages.

4. 1948 & 1967

Predictions began to run wild after the events of these two dates, and are still being maintained today, even in the face of obvious error and misdicrection. I had just finished up my sophomore year at Mississippi State University in May, 1967, when on June 5-10, the famous Six Day War emerged in the Middle East where Israel’s victory lead to her gain in territory, which included the Old City of Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip, and the Sinai Peninsula. Almost everyone was talking about the Six Day War. Some influential Christian leaders were certain this was a sign that Jesus’ return was very near, perhaps within five years.

In December of 1967, as the Christmas break approached, one of my dear, Christian friends who as a senior at State, majoring in Aerospace Engineering, told me he was going to finish the Fall Semester, but he wasn’t going to attempt to graduate in the Spring of 1968 because Jesus was coming back in five years, and he needed to be preaching the Gospel before He returned. I tried to reason with him from Matthew 24:36 and Acts 1:6-7, but at the time he was intransigent.

I went to a Baptist pastor-friend of mine and told him about my friend. He then shared with me about his experience twenty years before when he too was a junior at William Carey College in Hattiesburg, MS. In November of 1947, the United Nations voted to partition Palestine, dividing it between the Jews and the Arabs. Then, in May of 1948, when Israel was a declared a nation, the Arabs united to crush Israel, but they were defeated, and Israel emerged as a legitimate country once again after 1, 878 years of being a people without a nation of their own. He told me that at that time, the same thing happened with his fellow students – that is, many saw that as the sure sign that Jesus was returning within five years, and quite a number dropped out of college to evangelize before He would come back, perhaps by 1953! He then looked at me and said, “Justin, where are we now?” I told him, “We are in your office.” He then said, “Yes you are correct, and we are still here, some twenty years later after Israel became a nation once again.” He gave me some advice at that time that has remained with me ever since, and it has turned out to be some of the very best, godly, biblical, and truthful advice I have ever received:

“Justin, I have learned to live my life every day as though Jesus’ return was today, but I plan my life as though His coming were a lifetime away because no one know when He will return!”

Indeed, he was absolutely correct, as he based what He told me on solid, biblical truth, as well as historical truth, and I have chosen to live that way ever since, remembering that all who have attempted to predict when Jesus is coming back at a specific time have been wrong!

5. 1981

A number of Christian leaders who interpreted the word “generation” to mean forty years predicted that Jesus’ Return would be sometime in 1982, so that it would coincide with 1948 when Israel became a nation, and thus, forty years from 1948 would be 1988. We have already discussed the meaning of the word “generation” on pages 43-44 above, and we have seen, therefore, that its variety of meanings include the meaning of “race,” versus simply a “forty year” time period. One pastor who I know of directly was so convinced in his own mind that on December 31, 1981, he all but said in so many words that Jesus as going to return sometime in 1982. As 1982 came and went, however, there was some very real disillusionment among many of those who were followers of this man’s teaching, and in January of 1983, I had people from his congregation come to me who were spiritually confused and quite uncertain as to what to believe concerning the return of Christ, as well as other areas of this pastor’s teaching. One couple in particular came and told me that in the last five years since their marriage, they had decided to not have any children based on this pastor’s teaching that the rapture would occur at some point in 1982; however, it was January, 1983, and we were still here.

I told them of my experience in 1968 and what the pastor told me about “living my life everyday as though Jesus would come that day, but planning my life as though His coming was a lifetime away.” I prayed with them, and they went forward in Christ, centered on Jesus and His Word as their grid for truth, versus on that particular pastor’s eschatological perspective and other theological proclivities, and they began to move forward in having a family of their own. That pastor, like many of his day and time, were very sincere men who greatly loved Jesus, but they were totally incorrect in their eschatological interpretation of Scripture! The lesson from this failure, as with all failures in each of our lives, is to let God’s Word be the source of truth and direction in our lives, versus the theological proclivities and misdirections of men.

6. Y2K

All of us are familiar with this error, and here too, it was by very sincere people, who were unequivocally misdirected. In very simple terms, at 12:01 am on January 1, 2000, the whole of the world was supposed to shut down through computer incapacity to adjust from a two digit year (e.g., 99), to a four digit year (e.g., 2000). However, on January 1, 2000, nothing happened.

If you’ll remember, on December 11, 1998, delegates from 120 countries met at the National Y2K Coordinators Meeting to discuss the crisis. They discussed computer testing, crisis planning, communication between countries, and they pointed out countries that had not done their part to that point in preparing for the concern. Government systems prepared themselves for the date change. The American College of Physicians website provided physicians with a site to prepare them for readiness. Some businesses took a stand such as Northwest Airlines in saying that they would refuse to resume their daily routine unless the “bug” was fixed. Virtually all business had someone to turn on the Internet to help him or her “fix” his or her problem before it started…for a price.

The new millennium came and went with little brouhaha. Most governments and businesses were working more efficiently. Some retailers allowed consumers to returned items they found were unnecessary, such as the 15 gallons of extra water they had purchased “just in case.” Others just enjoyed the profits they made as a result of the hysteria.
Interestingly, many of the same Christian pastors, teachers, and writers who were and are still constantly affirming with every new world crisis that “JESUS IS COMING NOW,” were saying that Y2K was the “BEGINNING OF THE END!” Thus, what we learn through all of the above failed, prophetic predictions of men with regard to the time of Jesus’ return, and in particular with the most recent Y2K, is that Jesus was and is ALWAYS RIGHT, versus what might be described as the prophetic soothsayers who, once again, are always affirming with every new world crisis that “THE END IS COMING NOW!”:

And so when they had come together, they were asking Him, saying, “Lord, is it at this time You are restoring the kingdom to Israel?” 7 He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or epochs which the Father has fixed by His own authority; 8 but you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth.” (Acts 1:6-8)

Our task, therefore, is to be focused on being a witness to the saving power of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection to a lost and dying world, not to falsely be attempting to determine the date of Jesus’ return.

We need to keep our eyes on Jesus, not the headlines.

He will return at the precise millisecond of God’s predetermined plan, and that is indeed part of the Gospel message we are to proclaim, warning people that His coming could be at any time, BUT NOT ATTEMPTING TO GUESS WHEN THAT WILL BE:

Therefore be on the alert, for you do not know which day your Lord is coming. 43 “But be sure of this, that if the head of the house had known at what time of the night the thief was coming, he would have been on the alert and would not have allowed his house to be broken into. 44 “For this reason you be ready too; for the Son of Man is coming at an hour when you do not think He will. (Matthew 24:42-44)

Conclusion

May the Lord indeed cause us to always be aware that every day may be our last on this earth – either through our own death and home going to Him, or through His return. Therefore, the following passage is both a great encouragement to believers and a dire warning to those who are not, but who can be if they receive Jesus as their Lord and Savior:

¹³ But we do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve, as do the rest who have no hope. ¹⁴ For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus. ¹⁵ For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, and remain until the coming of the Lord, shall not precede those who have fallen asleep. ¹⁶ For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet of God; and the dead in Christ shall rise first. ¹⁷ Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and thus we shall always be with the Lord. 18 Therefore comfort one another with these words. ¹ Now as to the times and the epochs, brethren, you have no need of anything to be written to you. ² For you yourselves know full well that the day of the Lord will come just like a thief in the night. ³ While they are saying, “Peace and safety!” then destruction will come upon them suddenly like birth pangs upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape. ⁴ But you, brethren, are not in darkness, that the day should overtake you like a thief; ⁵ for you are all sons of light and sons of day. We are not of night nor of darkness; ⁶ so then let us not sleep as others do, but let us be alert and sober. ⁷ For those who sleep do their sleeping at night, and those who get drunk get drunk at night. ⁸ But since we are of the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and as a helmet, the hope of salvation. ⁹ For God has not destined us for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, ¹⁰ who died for us, that whether we are awake or asleep, we may live together with Him. ¹¹ Therefore encourage one another, and build up one another, just as you also are doing. (I Thessalonians 4:13-5:11)