ThinkTank Assignment: Eschatology – the doctrine of end times or last things

1. ThinkTank Assignment: Eschatology – the doctrine of end times or last things

2. The Church has a Mission Versus The Mission has a Church

3. The point of this lesson is to connect our Eschatology with the practical mission of the church and God’s program so that we can align our priorities as a church with what God is doing.

4. A New Testament Biblical Theology by G. K. Beale, Baker, December 1st, 2011

5. Sidenote: The missional church has often been accused of having a half-baked theology. Of course this is not true given that the missional conversation has been going on for 60 years.

6. Beale’s new New Testament Biblical Theology is another well-written expression of the missional theology that Gospel Life Church was built on. Gospel Life Church has always sought to base its practice on a deep understanding of the Bible and the Church’s place in the mission of God.

7. The Story of the Eden Sanctuary, Israel’s Temple, and Christ and the Church as the Ongoing Transformed Eschatological Temple of the Spirit in the New-Creational Kingdom

8. Temple Theology as a way to put your Bible together: Eden Noah & the Patriarchs (Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, etc.) Israel’s Tabernacle (tent) and Temple Jesus and the Church New Jerusalem

9. “Temple” is defined as a building for religious practice but the Biblical idea of temple would be a place of God’s presence.

10. Beale makes the case that the Garden of Eden was a temple in the first creation.

11. 1. The temple later in the OT was the unique place of God’s presence, where Israel had to go to experience that presence. Israel’s temple was the place where the priest experienced God’s unique presence, and Eden was the place where Adam walked and talked with God.

12. Compare Genesis 3:8  8 Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden. with 2 Samuel 6:6 I have not dwelt in a house from the day I brought the Israelites up out of Egypt to this day. I have been moving from place to place with a tent as my dwelling.

13. Leviticus 26:12 I will walk among you and be your God, and you will be my people. Deuteronomy 23:14 For the LORD your God moves about in your camp to protect you and to deliver your enemies to you. Your camp must be holy, so that he will not see among you anything indecent and turn away from you. Same Hebrew verb form, Hithpael, used in each of these texts.

14. 2.Genesis 2:15 says God placed Adam in the garden to “cultivate it and to keep it” or “serve and guard it.” When we see these words occur together later in the OT they most often refer to priests who serve God in the temple and guard the temple from unclean things entering it.

15. Numbers 3:7-8 7 They are to perform duties for him and for the whole community at the tent of meeting by doing the work of the tabernacle. 8 They are to take care of all the furnishings of the tent of meeting, fulfilling the obligations of the Israelites by doing the work of the tabernacle.

16. Numbers 8:25-2625 but at the age of fifty, they must retire from their regular service and work no longer. 26 They may assist their brothers in performing their duties at the tent of meeting, but they themselves must not do the work. This, then, is how you are to assign the responsibilities of the Levites.”

17. Nehemiah 12:45 They performed the service of their God and the service of purification, as did also the musicians and gatekeepers, according to the commands of David and his son Solomon.

18. This use of language serves to import the idea of Eden and God’s presence into the Mosaic Temple structure. So we should not merely see forgiveness of sin happening in the Israelite’s temple but rather that forgiveness of sins was necessary for the bigger goal of God’s presence returning to the earth through Israel after God’s departure after the fall of Adam.

19. Beale further contends that Adam also is portrayed as wearing priestly attire in Ezekiel 28:14 while some identify this figure as Satan (p. 618).

20. Ezekiel 28:13-14 13You were in Eden, the garden of God; every precious stone adorned you: carnelian, chrysolite and emerald, topaz, onyx and jasper, lapis lazuli, turquoise and beryl. Your settings and mountings were made of gold; on the day you were created they were prepared. 14 You were anointed as a guardian cherub, for so I ordained you. You were on the holy mount of God; you walked among the fiery stones.

21. The jewels that are said to be his “covering” in Ezekiel 28:13 are uniquely listed in Exodus 28:17-21, which describes the jewels on the ephod of Israel’s high priest, who is a human and not an angel.

22. Exodus 28:17-21 17 Then mount four rows of precious stones on it. The first row shall be carnelian, chrysolite and beryl; 18 the second row shall be turquoise, lapis lazuli and emerald; 19 the third row shall be jacinth, agate and amethyst; 20 the fourth row shall be topaz, onyx and jasper. Mount them in gold filigree settings. 21 There are to be twelve stones, one for each of the names of the sons of Israel, each engraved like a seal with the name of one of the twelve tribes.

23. *Compare to the Septuagint which lists agate and amethyst. Exodus carnelian chrysolite beryl turquoise lapis lazuli emerald jacinth agate amethyst topaz onyx jasper Ezekiel carnelian chrysolite beryl turquoise lapis lazuli emerald topaz, onyx jasper

24. Beale sees Ezekiel 28:14 as a metaphor. Compare: NIV- You were anointed as a guardian cherub, Beale- You were anointed like a guardian cherub, KJV, NASB- You were anointed the guardian cherub, HCSB- You were anointed an annointed guardian cherub, NET I placed you there with an anointed guardian cherub;

25. Ezekiel 28:13-14 13You were in Eden, the garden of God; every precious stone adorned you: carnelian, chrysolite and emerald, topaz, onyx and jasper, lapis lazuli, turquoise and beryl. Your settings and mountings were made of gold; on the day you were created they were prepared. 14 You were anointed like a guardian cherub, for so I ordained you. You were on the holy mount of God; you walked among the fiery stones.

26. Beale makes another point that Ezekiel 28:18 states that the sin of the glorious figure in Eden profaned Eden. The only account that we have that Eden became unclean because of sin is the narrative about Adam in Genesis 2-3.

27. Here is Beale’s point regarding Adam: Adam was to be the first priest to serve in and guard God’s temple. When Adam fails to guard the temple, by sinning and admitting an unclean serpent to defile the temple, he loses his priestly role, and the two cherubim take over the responsibility of guarding the garden temple. Hence the metaphor in Ezekiel 28:14 about being “like a guardian cherub.”

28. God stationed the cherubim to guard the way to the tree of life (Genesis 3:24). Their role became memorialized in Israel’s later temple when God commanded Moses to make two statues of angelic figures and station them on either side of the ark of the covenant in the holy of holies in the temple.

30. Like the cherubim, Israel’s priests were to “guard” or “keep watch over” the temple. Genesis 2:15 The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work (serve) it and take care of (guard) it.

31. 3. The Tree-of-Life itself was probably the model for the lampstand placed outside of the holy of holies in Israel’s temple. It looked like a small tree trunk with seven protruding branches, three on one side and three on the other and one up the middle.

32. The Lampstand  31 “Make a lampstand of pure gold. Hammer out its base and shaft, and make its flowerlike cups, buds and blossoms of one piece with them. 32 Six branches are to extend from the sides of the lampstand—three on one side and three on the other. 33 Three cups shaped like almond flowers with buds and blossoms are to be on one branch, three on the next branch, and the same for all six branches extending from the lampstand. 34 And on the lampstand there are to be four cups shaped like almond flowers with buds and blossoms.

33. 35 One bud shall be under the first pair of branches extending from the lampstand, a second bud under the second pair, and a third bud under the third pair—six branches in all. 36 The buds and branches shall all be of one piece with the lampstand, hammered out of pure gold.  37 “Then make its seven lamps and set them up on it so that they light the space in front of it. 38 Its wick trimmers and trays are to be of pure gold. 39 A talent of pure gold is to be used for the lampstand and all these accessories. 40 See that you make them according to the pattern shown you on the mountain.

35. 4. That the Garden of Eden was the first temple is also suggested by the fact that Israel’s later temple had wood carvings that gave it a garden-like atmosphere and likely were intentional reflections of Eden.

36. According to 1 Kings, there was “cedar…carved in the shape of gourds and open flowers” (6:18); “on the walls of the temple round about” and on the wood doors of the inner sanctuary were “carvings of cherubim, palm trees, and open flowers” (6:29-35); beneath the heads of the two pillars placed at the entrance of the holy place were carved “pomegranates” (7:18-20).

37. 1 Kings 6:18 The inside of the temple was cedar, carved with gourds and open flowers. Everything was cedar; no stone was to be seen. 1 Kings 6:29  On the walls all around the temple, in both the inner and outer rooms, he carved cherubim, palm trees and open flowers. 30 He also covered the floors of both the inner and outer rooms of the temple with gold.

38. 5. Just as the entrance to Israel’s later temple was to face east and be on a mountain, and just as the end-time temple of Ezekiel was to face east (Ezekiel 40:6) and be on a mountain (Ezekiel 40:2), so the entrance to Eden faced east (Genesis 3:24) and was situated on a mountain (Ezekiel 28:14, 16).

39. 6. The ark in the holy of holies, which contained the law (which led to wisdom), echoes the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (which too led to wisdom). The touching of both the ark and the tree resulted in death.

40. 7. Just as a river flowed out from Eden (Genesis 2:10), so the postexilic temple and the eschatological temple in both Ezekiel 47:1-12 has rivers flowing out from the center (likewise Revelation 7:15-17 and probably Zechariah 14:8-9).

41. Ezekiel depicts latter-day Mount Zion (and its temple) with descriptions of Eden in an attempt to show that the promises originally inherent in Eden would be realized in the fulfillment of his vision.

42. Psalm 36:8-9 8 They feast on the abundance of your house; you give them drink from your river of delights [literally the “river of your Edens”]. 9 For with you is the fountain of life; in your light we see light. The writer here describes worship in Edenic terms.

43. Jeremiah 17:7-8 7 “But blessed is the one who trusts in the LORD, whose confidence is in him. 8 They will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit.”

44. Psalm 1:2-3 2 but whose delight is in the law of the LORD, and who meditates on his law day and night. 3 That person is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither—whatever they do prospers.

45. 8. Like Israel’s later temple, the garden of Eden may be discerned to be part of a tripartite (3-part) sacred structure. In this respect, also in connection with the presence of water, it may even be discernible that there was a sanctuary and a holy place in Eden corresponding roughly to that in Israel’s later temple.

46. The garden should be viewed as not itself the source of water but rather as adjoining Eden since Genesis 2:10 says “a river flowed out of Eden to water the garden.

47. Therefore in the same manner that ancient palaces where adjoined by gardens, “Eden is the source of the waters and [is the palatial] residence of God, and the garden adjoins God’s residence.

48. Ezekiel 47:1 says that water would flow out from under the holy of holies in the future eschatological temple and would water the earth around. In the end time temple of Revelation 22:1-2 there is portrayed “a river of the water of life…coming from the throne of God and of the Lamb” and flowing into a garden-like grove modeled on the first paradise in Genesis 2.

49. If Ezekiel and Revelation are developments of the first garden-temple then Eden, the area where the source of water is located, may be comparable to the inner sanctuary of Israel’s later temple and the garden adjoining the holy place. Eden → Garden & Tree of Life→ Ends of the Earth Holy-of-Holies → Holy Place→ Outer Court

50. The land and seas to be subdued by Adam outside the garden were a third distinct region roughly equivalent to the outer court of Israel’s subsequent temple. → Ends of the Earth → Outer Court