The End Times
From a scriptural point of view, the “end times” are not about a specific person or place, but a particular drama – a series of events that, like any prophetic strain, lead from a recognizable beginning to an inevitable end. And yet, despite all of the common scriptural patterns on which it draws, the book of Revelation sets itself apart as a drama that lacks the conventional outlets generally associated with the phenomenon.
Within the prophetic and wisdom literature traditions there is an understanding that the cross-hatch of dramas, both known and unknown, leave open a multitude of choices to the free human being. Each path begs for participation. Each path has variable launching points and a set end. As a person traverses the path they have chosen, they inevitably reach a point where they recognize that their freedom is being constricted. The choices that once seemed available are no longer there. Doors of opportunity close. The closer a person comes to reaching the end of their prophetic path, the more they try to slow down the process. They become attracted to diversions – things that take their mind away from the process at hand.
This is how some people approach a project end, a termination date, a wedding – even death. Any critical junction in life. As the Greeks would say, a “crisis:” a moment requiring clear judgment. As human beings we prolong the inevitable as it threatens our ability to live out our dreams of being able to do precisely what we wish at all times. As we reach the end of a prophetic path, our world implodes into our self. These implosions happen to us on a micro-level every day – they bring about sensations of remorse or fulfillment, joy or sorrow, anger or contentment – sometimes simple fear.
Prophetic experience points to these dramas and considers them an opportunity to expand ones core – to increase the vocabulary that one uses to comprehend their world and make their world larger. To grow. To repent and change paths or direction. To prevent stagnation and move forward into something more hopeful. This is not an easy task, but in every event the prophets indicate that when repentance and redemption come face to face with God, the Lord provides a means to grace and illumines something that will bridge a gap between the end of the path we travel and the way forward – perhaps even the way to authentic joy. In this way the life of walking with God has no terminal destination – it is the ultimate process of immortality – of endlessly finding new paths of living exploration, guided from point to point by the light of God. ‘Heaven’ as one might call this, is not a place as much as it is a process – and yet the process itself provides all of the amenities and security that we would associate with a safe place. So in our mind it feels like a place when it is in fact simply the most secure process that we can ever participate in. It is, as it were, like Noah’s Ark… always in motion on the sea and yet without fear of sinking.
The book of revelation takes this lifestyle and adjusts it, creating a unique drama that has a cataclysmic ending. This path is unlike any of the other terminating prophetic paths that came before it. In the case of all of the dramas that preceded it, one could apply the common phrase, “When God closes a door, he opens a window.” With regard to the ‘end times’ this is no longer an option, because the God who normally would deliver grace has been replaced by an impostor.
For early Christians, the application of the term ‘anti-Christ’ had this specific meaning – it was a person or system that displaced Christ – that did not merely ignore him, but filled his place with something else. It misrepresented him, or disguised itself as him in such a way that the actual path of deliverance that Christ offers is lost. It may simply have been more attractive than him.
End-times theologians and people interested in seeking out the fulfillment of prophecy look to signs – they look at the symbols of revelation, but in truth Revelation uses these to illumine the prophetic path of earthly leadership and conquest. The four horses of the apocalypse represent the inevitable progress of earthly rule – if you compare their order and results to those presented in Amos and other prophetic books about the failure of the Israelite and Judahite monarchy, you see that the four horsemen represent the fall of human power. This is something that we see time and time again.
The difference is in the context of the end times path, which has at its core the sin which Jesus spoke of as ‘the unforgivable sin’ – blasphemy against the Spirit of the Lord. This inevitably comes from the fusion of religion and government – there is not one theocratic system described in the bible that did not serve an anti-Christ role. The Judahite people suffered as their rulers struggled with this difficulty for centuries: the difficulty of the king to maintain balance between embodying the Law and serving the law. Even today, within our democratic society, it is difficult at times to tell if the President of the United States sees himself as attempting to defend – or claiming rights to embodiment of – the Constitution. Part of the difficulty also stems from the expectations of the population. There are those who see the American way of life as being the root of all happiness, while others believe that America will only improve if they can elect a President who will do what they want. In the face of all of this, there is always lingering temptation for those placed in the role of authority to personify the power given to them by God and seeing it as a reflection of themselves – it is a temptation that lies at the root of the savior complex.
Even the prophets and St. Paul struggled with maintaining the segregation between the power of God and their vehicular status. The frailty of the conduit is jealous of the refreshment of the stream.
When a government establishes itself as the source of life for its people, it becomes the anti-Christ. This is represented in revelation by the wearing of a sign on the right hand and forehead. Such decorations in antiquity are a form of social and religious insurance – they indicate that a person’s thought and deed are guaranteed and protected by what that symbol represents. If you agree to the assurance, you transact. This is the meaning of the statement that “without the symbol no one will be able to buy or sell.” It doesn’t mean that they will be immature – it means those with the sign will not be capable of trusting those who do not have it. The sign on the person’s body is reflective of who they rely on for safety and protection – the brand they believe in – the cause that they believe will assure them of life, safety, security and comfort.
In our past history there have always been alternatives to earthly regimes. Every regime has its symbol – the Nazis had the swastika. The Romans had the eagle. The jews had nothing – for many years, their aniconic sympathies prevented the use of a symbol to represent their deity. Instead they would have a piece of text affirming their resignation to the Lord as the source of life for His people. For many early Christians, this practice translated into the use of scriptural texts in talismans as a form of protection. The sign of the cross was a proof, not an ideological symbol. For some Jews and all Christians, their faith communities represented movements that resisted earthly alliance in favor of a faith in divine providence and deliverance from all sources of death.
What happens, then, when those faiths ally themselves with earthly campaigns? What happens when church and synagogue fuse their motivations with the state? The romantic citizen believes that this brings the fruits of divine economy to civilization. However, prophetic scripture has always claimed the opposite. Theocracies are terminally mundane – and what’s worse, they displace God as the ultimate provider of all things to all of creation.
The “end times” then represent the final prophetic path, the cycle where all representation of the faith of God on earth falls into the mundane – where there is no longer an assembly to appeal to that is not tainted by the ambitions of humanity. Every hand reaching to God is grabbed by something else. It is the only prophetic path where grace is wholly inaccessible, and all are lost.
Are we there? Are we drawing closer to it? We may not have to make martyrs of those who are faithful to what they cannot see. In our modern world all we have to do is stop teaching the gospel. Those who know it will die, just as Joseph died – just as the whole generation who knew Joseph died – and the knowledge of God will stop. And we will find ourselves like the Hebrews making bricks for some walking god-man ruler like pharaoh. We will find ourselves awaken from the slumber by a final return of the true God to deliver those who have been asleep out of their slumber. And like the Hebrews, some of us will stumble forward following a God we do not know to a place we have never heard of. Yet many will opt to stay in Egypt – they’d rather die than change.
It is easy to see how, within this prophetic framework, life and death, location and specific personalities and players fall away into irrelevance. The “end times” are not about these kinds of specifics – they are the ultimate case of a protypical drama that we live out in small portions every day of our lives. The question is, when all paths end in the same place and the age of freedom is over and done, will we have the wisdom and courage to leave all that we know and rely on behind – to embrace deliverance from beyond our known world – in order to attain life? Or will we dwell forever wanting in pursuit of our own shadow?
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© 2006 Jacob Gorny