Disagreeing agreeably

It is so sad that the Book of Revelation has so divided evangelicals. We seem to thrive on taking sides and attacking those who disagree with us. We dismiss their convictions as worthless or worse. I recently heard a Bible exposition on Revelation from a pre-millennial perspective and at one stage in his address he warned us that if we did not agree with his interpretation we were under the control of Satan. This is certainly not the type of remark we should make lightly.

There are other areas where Christians often disagree so this polarisation of viewpoints is not unique to Revelation. Evangelical Christians are in agreement when it comes to the basic tenets of our faith. The statement of faith agreed by the Keswick Convention is accepted by a wide range of Christian churches. Here are some extracts from the doctrinal statement to which all those involved in the running of the annual Convention have subscribed.

Doctrinal statement

• There is one God in three persons, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

• God is sovereign in creation, revelation, redemption and final judgment.

• The Bible, as originally given, is the inspired and infallible Word of God. It is the supreme

authority in all matters of belief and behaviour.

• Since the fall, the whole of humankind is sinful and guilty, so that everyone is subject to God's

wrath and condemnation.

• The Lord Jesus Christ, God's incarnate Son, is fully God; he was born of a virgin; his humanity

is real and sinless; he died on the cross, was raised bodily from death and is now reigning

over heaven and earth.

• Sinful human beings are redeemed from the guilt, penalty and power of sin only through the sacrificial death once and for all time of their representative and substitute, Jesus Christ, the only mediator between them and God.

• Those who believe in Christ are pardoned all their sins and accepted in God's sight only

because of the righteousness of Christ credited to them; this justification is God's act of

undeserved mercy, received solely by trust in him and not by their own efforts.

• The Holy Spirit alone makes the work of Christ effective to individual sinners, enabling them

to turn to God from their sin and to trust in Jesus Christ.

• The Holy Spirit lives in all those he has regenerated. He makes them increasingly Christ-like

in character and behaviour and gives them power for their witness in the world.

• The one holy universal church is the Body of Christ, to which all true believers belong.

• The Lord Jesus Christ will return in person, to judge everyone, to execute God's just

condemnation on those who have not repented and to receive the redeemed to eternal glory.

But while most evangelicals can agree on all of these, there might be disagreement on such matters as baptism, the Holy Spirit, women's role in a church etc. However, the book of Revelation is the book where we take entrenched positions which we defend tenaciously. I do not intend to focus on the differences of interpretation unless it proves necessary for the understanding of the passage. I do not wish to delve into the labels which have been given to these varied understandings of this book. In today's blog, I wish to reflect on the impact there has been from our desire to dig trenches and fire missiles at the opposing camps. I cannot see that this is God honouring. I was watching the news a few nights ago and I was shocked at just how much Donald Trump has divided American society. I was shocked at the venom expressed by both sides in the great political divided in the USA. This provided me with a caricature of the opposing camps in evangelical circles in relation to such matters as whether Jesus will come back before or after the events known as the great tribulation and the millennium, or whether most of Revelation applies to the ethnic nation of Israel.

Bible teachers are human and need to be conscious of the weakness of the sinful nature. There is always the danger of pride affecting our judgement and our conduct. With pride, there is a raft of other sins such as jealousy and envy, or hatred and bitterness. It is easy to pretend that we are fighting for the truth or defending the Word of God when, in reality, we are defending our reputation and our status in Christian circles. Some Bible scholars have staked their whole standing on one particular line of thought. It is not easy to admit that we might just have made a mistake.

When it comes to interpreting Revelation, it is sometimes necessary or, at least, advisable to say that we simply do not know with certainty. I was struck by a quotation cited in Darrell Johnson's book, Discipleship on the Edge

No a-millennialist is going to pout if the post-millennialist is right. No post-millennialist is going to have his feelings hurt if a-millennialism proves to be more consistent with the unfolding history of redemption. Pre-millennialists are not going to high five one another for a thousand years in the face of dejected post mils and a-mils, should their views on these matters be realised in history. The good news is that all Christians are going to enjoy fully everything won for us by our blessed Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, no matter what our position on the millennium is. [Scotty Smith and Michael Card, Unveiled Hope: Eternal Encouragement from the Book of Revelation (1997) p 199]

Just to help us to make sense of this, there are three different positions referred to in this reflection.

Firstly, there are those who believe that the second coming will take place before the tribulation and the millennium - known as pre-millennialism or 'pre-mil' as Scotty Smith describes them. Secondly, there are those who believe that the second coming will take place after the tribulation and the millennium - known as post-millennialism or 'post-mil' in Scotty's shorthand. Thirdly, there are those who do not envisage a period of tribulation lasting for three and a half years followed by a millennial reign of Jesus for 1,000 years. In simple terms they see both of these as a description of the period of time between the resurrection of Jesus Christ and his second coming. Their position is known as a-millennialism or 'a-mil' to cite Scotty Smith.

Darrell Johnson provides a list of three principles with which the three options will all agree.

• The best is yet to come

• The future is not up for grabs. It belongs to Jesus Christ.

• The future is not in our hands. It finally breaks in "from outside the old creation."

It may seem trivial but it is good to remind ourselves of the key truths with which we are all in agreement. I remember one year when volunteering at Rawnsley site during the Keswick Convention. One devout evangelical Christian positioned himself outside the Base Camp and he was holding a bill board condemning the Keswick Convention because they had abandoned what he called the Authorised Version - the King James Version. Another volunteer had a word with him and tried to reason with him to remove his placard as it was causing an offence and was sending the wrong message to the local people in the town of Keswick many of whom were unhappy with the Convention being held for three weeks each year. This man thought he was being faithful and that Keswick Convention represented the Anti-Christ. He was insisting that he was doing no wrong. How sad it is that he seemed to have such entrenched views that he could not see any justification for the great work being done by Keswick Convention over the many years of his existence. It can be the same with viewpoints on prophetic matters - we have erected our placards and displayed our banners and we are wanting to treat those who see differently as enemies rather than part of the Church which is His Body. How quickly we resort to slogans and make inflammatory statements. We indulge in name calling and slander against those holding viewpoints which differ from ours.