Saturday, December 27, 2008

Is the end really contingent on the proclamation of the gospel to all people groups?

Jesus said "and this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come." (Mt 24:14)

The common teaching on this passage within the Christian community in which I live is that the coming of the end remains contingent on the evangelizing of every last tribe on the earth. However, there are significant indications that what Jesus meant was the widespread proclamation of the message of the kingdom without geographical or racial restriction.

In this regard, for example, even though Paul had not reached the unevangelized territory of Spain (cf. Rom 15:20–24), he spoke of the spread of the gospel in the most comprehensive language when he said "faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ. But I ask: Did they not hear? Of course they did: "Their voice has gone out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.'" (Rom 10:18, where Ps 19:4 is quoted by analogy).

Through the missionary work of the apostles, it appears that the gospel had "gone out to all the earth" during the first generation of Christians. If so, "the end" could already have come in the first century. The required conditions were all present. All the sufferings referred to in Mt 24:5–12 were experienced in the years prior to a.d. 70 and the fall of Jerusalem, and in varying degree they have been signs experienced by the church down to the present era.

So it seems likely that the signs of the end have been present to every Christian generation.

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