Things to Come: A Study in Biblical Eschatology
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This paper is a review and critique of J. Dwight PentecostÆs Things to Come: A Study in Biblical Eschatology. This book is an attempt at creating a systematic theology for the Evangelical Christian movement generally known as Dispensationalism (even though that is not an ideal name for it). Dispensationalists like to believe that their theology goes back to the ancient church, and in a sense it may, insofar as it crystallizes tendencies that have always existed within Christian thought. However, as a distinct movement, it began with the work of John Nelson Darby (1800-1882), who defected from the Anglican Church, which he believed to be corrupt, and founded the group that would come to be called the Plymouth Brethren. He visited America several times in the post-Civil-War period and gained many followers.In this massive work (633 pages), Dr. Pentecost, one of the most prominent of the Dispensationalist theologians ( he is a professor at the Dallas Theological Seminary), has synthesized the whole field of Biblical prophecy into a unified system, relating all the prophecies in the Bible to one another. However, as the title indicates, the book is primarily concerned with the study of eschatology, that is, the study of the ôlast things to come,ö since the majority of Biblical prophecies deal with such concerns. In the first section of the book, entitled ôThe Interpretation of Prophecy,ö Pentecost lays down the philosophical foundations needed to underpin a systematic theolo
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In the last five sections of the book, Pentecost deals with the five ages into which he believes the future will be divided according to Biblical prophecy. These are the present age, the period of the Tribulation, the age of the Second Advent, the period of the Millennium, and the age of the eternal city.
In Section Three, Pentecost deals with the prophecies that apply to the present age. He deals first, in Chapter IX, with two of the key prophetic passages: Chapter 13 of Matthew, which consists of the ôparables of the Kingdomö; and Revelation 2 and 3, which contains the letters to the seven churches. It is not hard to see why Matthew 13 should be interpreted as prophecy, since the Kingdom has not come yet. However, this is harder to see for the letters in Revelation, since it would appear that these were actual letters to actual churches of the time (some being known from other scriptural or Christian writings, such as the letters of the Apostolic Fathers). However, Pentecost would justify his interpretation of them as prophetic by means of the law of double reference: the fact that the letters had an obvious focus in their time does not preclude the possibility that they were intended by the Spirit which in
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 2017
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page)
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