You claim time ceases to exist and you do not even know what that would mean?
Jesus said in Luke 17:26-30,
“as it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man. They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all. Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded; But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all. Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed.”
The plain focus of this teaching in Luke 17 (reference Noah and Lot’s day) is the nature and degree of the judgment that befell the wicked in these two familiar Old Testament stories and especially the extent of that particular wrath. The key element and major emphasis of this discourse is the fact (speaking of the ungodly) that God
“destroyed them all.” The comprehensive destruction of the wicked in both of these examples is the important lesson of the narrative; both the whole world of Noah’s day and the whole individual city of Sodom in Lot’s day
saw the immediate and complete rescue of the entire righteous coupled together with the immediate and complete destruction of the entire wicked.
Christ plainly and purposefully advanced these two days, where the righteous were graciously rescued just prior to the full annihilation of the wicked, in order to vividly portray the nature and scope of the day of His wrath at the second coming. He deliberates and graphically connected the happenings of both these former days of judgment to the day of His return. Jesus succinctly said, “Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed” (Luke 17:30).
After speaking of the “
days of Noe” and the “
days of Lot,” the Lord then describes a singular “
day” when the righteous were rescued and the wicked were destroyed. Whilst the Lord presents the rebellion and debauchery that preceded both of these judgments as a sign of how things will exist prior to the day of His all-consummating appearing, the main focus of His teaching relates to the focus and scale of the wrath which did fall on these two solemn days of destruction and how they accurately reflect what will happen at the second coming. Both individually and jointly, they supply us with a stunning insight into the nature of the actual
day that Christ’s returns and to the
days that precede His glorious Second Coming. In their substance and importance these two Old Testament days are distinct and unique. And whilst the nature of the judgment and geographical extent of both appreciably varies, brought-together, they graphically represent (1) the
type of catastrophe coming, and (2) the
scale of the destruction at the end. Scripture nowhere separates in time the gathering of the Lord's people to Himself with the destruction of the wicked.
It is not just that Scripture depicts the second coming as “the end of the age/world” (as many Scriptures state), it is that it labels it as “the last day” or simply “the end.” The Bible shows the resurrection/judgment of the righteous and the resurrection of the wicked to occur on “the last day” of “the last days” when Jesus comes. Martha had a full awareness of that truth in the New Testament, when speaking of her brother Lazarus to Christ, in John 11:23-24
, “Jesus saith unto her, Thy brother shall rise again. Martha saith unto him, I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at
the last day.”
Christ did not rebuke this understanding of the last day. In fact, Christ taught in complete agreement in John 6:39.
Jesus said in John 6:39:
“all which he hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day.”
Jesus said in John 6:39:
“every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day.”
Jesus said in John 6:44:
“No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day.”
Jesus said in John 6:54:
“Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood (speaking spiritually and figuratively),
hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day.”
Whilst, we are plainly in the last days there is an actual day coming which will conclude this scene of time and will see the final operation of God’s judgment upon sin, Satan and the wicked. That individual day is frequently known as “the last day.”
The sum total of God’s elect will be gloriously raised at this concluding final day. The resurrection of the righteous like that of the wicked is therefore for the purpose of judgment and happens on that great last or final day of salvation. That is how Paul could say with all assurance in 2 Timothy 4:8,
“there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing.”
Moreover, this concluding last day is
not just a day of resurrection and judgment for the righteous but also for the wicked. This is confirmed by Christ in John 12:48, when He said,
“He that rejecteth me, and receiveth not my words, hath one that judgeth him: the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day.”
Here the wicked are judged on the same day that the righteous are judged, namely, the “last day” of the “last days.” The term “the last day” is quoted different times in the New Testament without any form (or undoubted requirement) of qualification or any hint that there are two separate last days, as the Premillennialist would try and argue. When Christ or any other person referred to that final day in the New Testament it was always constantly in the context of its all-consummating nature, each time referring to the matter of the resurrection/judgment of both the wicked and the righteous. The references expressly refer to the last day of this age (the Gospel age) – the day that ushers in the new heaven and the new earth. There are absolutely no grounds for believing that the last day refers to a future millennium, and therefore lasts for a literal 1,000 years. Such a suggestion only emanates out of the Premillennialist camp in order to support their flawed view of Revelation 20.
Significantly, in
all the above references, the wording in the original for “last day” is always identical –
eschatee heemara. The Greek word
eschatee used here comes from the root word
eschatos, from where we get our word English eschatology, and simply means
end, last, farthest or final. Eschatology is therefore the study of, or teaching on, end times or final or last things. It covers the period of redemptive history.
We can therefore safely assume from its meaning that the last day alluded to in these references relates to the end or final day of this age, the day when all the purposes of God for man in this life are finally concluded and judged. It is the last or final day when the old heavens and the old earth will finally pass away and be replaced by a new heaven and a new earth. It is an all-consummating day in which every man will give finally give account for his life.
Nowhere in any of Christ’s statements on the resurrection, the judgment, the last day, and the does He make any allowance for, or the slightest allusion to, a 1000 years gap separating His dealings with, and His judgment of, the sheep and the goats.
Revelation 10:1-3:
“And I saw another mighty angel come down from heaven, clothed with a cloud: and a rainbow was upon his head, and his face was as it were the sun, and his feet as pillars of fire: And he had in his hand a little book open: and he set his right foot upon the sea, and his left foot on the earth, And cried with a loud voice, as when a lion roareth: and when he had cried, seven thunders uttered their voices.”
The symbolism and authority surrounding this great heavenly angel proves beyond a doubt that it is none other than the Lord Jesus Christ and a picture of His glorious Second Coming. We will the symbolism shortly.
Revelation 10:5-7 says of the Second Advent and the concluding last trumpet,
“And the angel which I saw stand upon the sea and upon the earth lifted up his hand to heaven, and sware by him that liveth for ever and ever, who created heaven, and the things that therein are, and the earth, and the things that therein are, and the sea, and the things which are therein, that there should be time no longer: but in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished, as he hath declared to his servants the prophets.”
There is clearly a major dilemma here for you those who take Revelation to be a literal chronological unfolding of last day events. They must surely concede, if they are going to be consistent with their view that everything after Revelation 11 (which also makes reference to the seventh trumpet) is in the realm of eternity and the after-life. After all Revelation 10 plainly records that with this particular event “there should be time no longer.” For those who would lightly dismiss this important narrative as anything other than a magnificent picture of the Lord Jesus Christ and His glorious second coming, they do foolishly ignore the great wealth of explicit and consistent end-time teaching on this subject and divorce the undoubted harmony of this chapter from the rest of New Testament prophetic teaching.
This is
the end of the old temporal sin-cursed order and the introduction of the new eternal glorified order. Also, the undoubted finality surrounding the echo of the seventh trumpet proves beyond doubt that it is the last trump – the final trumpet sound for all mankind. “The kingdoms of this world” have finally “become the kingdoms of our lord, and of his Christ” and “he shall reign” not for 1000 years as some would have us believe but “for ever and ever.” Those who reject such evidence do so (in the main) in order to support the Preterist, Pretribulationist or Historist positions.
The King James Version interprets the passage correctly and in context:
chronos ouketi estai – literally meaning:
Time – no longer – there shall be’!!!
The whole import and wording of the remainder of the passage perfectly supports the King James Version rendering and confirms the all-consummating nature of the Second Advent, which says, “when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be
etelesthee (or) finished.” It should be noted that the word
etelesthee is a very strong all-consummating word that is rightly translated ‘finished’ in this reading and is consistently interpreted:
completed, concluded, expired and accomplished.
Revelation 11:15:
“And the seventh angel sounded; and there were great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever.”
Verse 18 then reveals how the Second Advent ushers in the general judgment, saying,
“And the nations were angry, and thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead, that they should be judged, and that thou shouldest (1)
give reward unto thy servants the prophets, and to the saints, and them that fear thy name, small and great; and shouldest (2)
destroy them which destroy the earth. And the temple of God was opened in heaven, and there was seen in his temple the ark of his testament: and there were lightnings, and voices, and thunderings, and an earthquake, and great hail.”
This is
the end of the old temporal sin-cursed order and the introduction of the new eternal glorified order. Also, the undoubted finality surrounding the echo of the seventh trumpet proves beyond doubt that it is the last trump – the final trumpet sound for all mankind. “The kingdoms of this world” have finally “become the kingdoms of our lord, and of his Christ” and “he shall reign” not for 1000 years as some would have us believe but “for ever and ever.” Those who reject such evidence do so (in the main) in order to support the Pretribulationist doctrine.
At the last trumpet, Christ will “reward” the saints and “destroy” the wicked. It is “the time of the dead, that they should be judged.” One wonders how anyone could not see a general resurrection of the dead here in order to enable a general judgment.
