I was born and bred a dispensationalist. As I grew up, I was fascinated by the prophecy punditry movement often associated with dispensational eschatology (although we Reformed folk have had our share of cranks too--remember Harold Camping?). Any current event could be (and was) tied to Scripture. The way in which the prophecy pundits made the Bible seem to come alive was truly remarkable. But then after years of wrestling with the eschatology of Jesus and the Apostles as presented in the Bible, I eventually became amillennial.
I was scheduled to speak this coming Friday and Saturday (March 20 and 21) at a conference entitled "The Blessed Hope: Christian Eschatology Simply Explained." Among other topics, I was supposed to speak on the biblical signs of the end--rather ironic given current events. As I was preparing my lectures for a conference which was then cancelled because of a world wide-pandemic of a killer virus, the likes of which no one alive has ever experienced, it dawned on me how different my take on the signs of the end would be, if I still held to the eschatology of my youth.
My lecture on "signs of the end" centers around those signs which refer specifically to the Apostles (and which were fulfilled in their lifetimes), those signs which characterize the entire inter-advental age (wars and rumors of wars, earthquakes, famine, persecution of God's people, false doctrine and false Christs), and then those signs which are true harbingers of the end (the conversion of Israel, a great apostasy, and the appearance of the Antichrist). I see dramatic events like the Covid-19 pandemic as yet another non-specific birth pain of the end. The worry and uncertainty we see all around us was foretold by Jesus and the Apostles. Our Lord told us to expect such things, but did not predict any specific pandemic. In fact, he even warned us about getting too specific. "No one knows" when our Lord will return (Matthew 24:38).
But then I thought of the sheer creative opportunities open to me if I were still a punditry-inclined dispensationalist. Think about it. Some of these connections between the way in which the prophecy pundits read the Bible and the end times are so obvious, how could we miss them? When the fifth seal is broken (Revelation 9:1-11) stinging locusts appear. This could be a prophetic image of government repression in preparation for the Antichrist brought about by a final plague (tear gas, police and military in riot gear, helicopters), or even perhaps, some microscopic image could be found in which the Covid-19 virus somehow looks, or is made to look, like the mysterious locusts depicted by John.
Then, there is the obvious fact that Covid-19 first appeared in Wuhan, China. The mention of an army of 200 million from the east could easily be tied in a rather dramatic way to the sixth trumpet in Revelation 9:13-21. John foresees the angels releasing three plagues on mankind. One of these plagues could be the Covid-19 virus coming out of China to infect the rest of the world, killing a third of mankind.
Another obvious prophecy which we could tie to the end is the destruction of Babylon the Great by a series of plagues (as mentioned in Revelation 18:8). This too might be might be Covid-19. The virus which spread into Western Europe might be connected to the mystery of the woman riding the scarlet beast with seven heads and ten horns. Many pundits have argued the woman is Rome (Italy was first to be hit hard--right?), and now the entire EU has been inundated with cases. The ten horns and seven heads of Revelation 17 have long been thought to be the EU as a revived the Roman Empire, even though, rather embarrassingly, the EU now has 27 member nations.
Meanwhile, those of us who think it improper to interpret the Bible in the light of current events, and who use the analogy of faith (in which clear biblical texts tell us what more obscure texts mean) cannot do what prophecy pundits do; conjure up wild and speculative end-times scenarios, even if they are compelling to those who trust such teachers.
It does appear that the punditry business has discredited itself through so many "never came to pass" prophetic scenarios that the industry has pretty much dried up. So far, prophecy pundits have been restrained--so far. One bellwether end-times website I checked was more worried about Joe Biden possibly getting the Democratic nomination than it was about the spread of Covid-19. It looks to me that many of the prophecy pundits and those who follow them have moved to a different realm of speculation--American politics.
I am thankful prophecy punditry has not dominated the recent news--especially when we face a serious pandemic with unforeseen consequences. The prophetic prognosticators do great harm to a proper biblical eschatology, and however unintentionally, they bring ridicule down upon the cause of Jesus Christ and his word. Peter even warned us about them (2 Peter 3:1-13).
But I must confess, for a brief moment, I thought about how different my lecture on "signs of the end," would have been had I written on this topic in the early days of my theological interest and development. Yes, amillennialism does have a downside--there is little, if any, room for prophecy punditry. We can tell the world that in the Covid-19 pandemic we see birth pains of the Lord's return, which is why we are not surprised nor dismayed by the news good or bad.
Our hope for whatever happens on the world stage is in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ-not in our ability to grasp the full significance of what is unfolding before us, a significance hitherto unknown until "revealed" to us by the prophecy pundits.
Wednesday, March 25, 2020 at 07:00PM 
