During this season of Pentecost with reflection on the modern pentecostal/charismatic movements, we should be struck by the irony that the very historical event – the Pentecost of Acts 2:4 – which testified of Christ’s enthronement in Heaven, should also be that branch of Christianity which denies it the most. The Evangelical churches – and the Pentecostal ones in particular – dogmatically cling to the doctrine of premillennialism, calling it “the Blessed Hope.”
In the confessional statements of almost every “conservative, Bible-believing” denomination among the final tenets can found words to this effect:
“We believe in the blessed hope of Christ’s imminent and physical return to set up his kingdom to rule on Earth for a thousand years.”
Yet if the truth of that first Pentecost is to believed, the true blessed hope is that Jesus Christ has already been enthroned in Heaven “and His kingdom ruleth over all.”
Christians complain that the devil is too strong for them and that the wicked cannot be defeated without help from a returning Christ who will set things right. They never comprehend that it is their own spiritual lawlessness, their own faulty doctrinal commitments in life and worship, which is the source of their failure.
Their “second coming of Christ” would be the coming of a different Christ, a false Christ, a Christ who is helpless now, but who will “rule with a rod of iron” as soon as He returns. Somehow for these people, Heaven is too far away, too removed from the affairs of men, that Christ’s kingdom can be adequately enforced in his physical absence.
Not only does this Millennial doctrine present a false Christ, but it also denies the procession of the Holy Ghost. It is in terms of fundamental doctrine, a hoax which has been perpetuated upon the world.
It will not end well for modern Evangelicals because for our generation, there will be no Rapture, no glorious descent of Christ in the clouds of Heaven, no Battle of Armageddon, no final destruction of evil. All that we can hope for is the “Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse,” a solar nova, and a struggle for survival in its aftermath – the season of God’s Great Eschaton.
None of the wicked shall understand, but the wise shall understand.
Daniel 12:10
JWS, June 4th, 2023
