When Christians think of the end times, they usually look up. Christ’s imminent return and “being left behind” come to mind, as do signs of the times, beasts, antichrists, and Armageddon. And what’s more, there are endless debates over millennial positions, and whether the rapture is pre-wrath, or pre-, mid-, or post-trib. And with such a focus, we tend to miss the main point of Scripture when it focuses on the end times.
D.A. Carson in a short little book from Christian Focus Publications, sets our sights on what’s most important when it comes to the end times. In From The Resurrection to His Return: Living Faithfully in the Last Days, he argues that Christians since Paul’s time down to today have been living in the age of the end times. And this reality, he argues, should impact how we live and think. In this book he takes us through 2 Timothy 3 and 4, and offers practical reflections on how to orient ourselves in these last days.
The chapters are short, but the points made are profound. Carson writes with a refined style that’s been sharpened through his many years of waging scholarly battles for truth, while at the same time basking in the Gospel. He is a rare blend of scholasticism and heart, intellect and emotion, humility and widespread renown. He shares a good many gems of wisdom in the pages of this book, which make it well worth picking up (or downloading to your e-reader).
Sometimes the simple truths are the hardest to see and live out. So what Carson offers us in this devotional study is as helpful as when he gives us 400 more pages with hundreds of footnotes (in one of his commentaries, perhaps). He presses home the importance of mentoring, of speaking the Word to others, and the dangers of false teaching. He shares poignant insights as in his contention that when Paul refers to evil men waxing “worse and worse”, that he does not mean that each generation gets worse. Rather it is that “evil people get worse and worse”. I don’t want to steal Carson’s thunder in rehashing all the best parts of his book, but I do want to provide an excerpt to give you a feel for his style and to encourage you to pick up this little book.
Some who go by the name of ‘Evangelical’ view the Bible in such scrappy atomistic bits that they can find moralising lessons here and there, but cannot see how the Bible gives us the gospel of Jesus Christ. But the Bible is not a magic book, as in: “A verse a day keeps the devil away”. It is a book that points us to Jesus, and this Jesus saves and transforms…. These Scriptures make you “wise for salvation”.
With the book’s catchy cover, the author (and his appeal), together with the subject matter (the end times), I have to admit that I was hoping for more. But even with the shorter length of this work (60 pages), there is much value. Hopefully for some, it will introduce them to D.A. Carson and make them want more. For others, it will provide a helpful reminder of the main point concerning the Bible’s end-times teaching. And for all who pick up this book, it will be both an encouragement and a challenge. May Christ come quickly, and find his people “living faithfully in the end times”.
Pick up a copy of this book: Westminster Bookstore, ChristianBook.com, Amazon.com, or direct from the publisher.
Disclaimer: This book (the Kindle e-book version) was provided by Christian Focus Publications. I was under no obligation to offer a favorable review.
About Book Briefs: Book Briefs are book notes, or short-form book reviews. They are my informed evaluation of a book, but stop short of being a full-length book review.
Looks like an amazing book…
Hi Bob,
Thank you for your review of this book and the good work you do on this website. I have a brief comment.
I would take it from a different perspective, a futurist perspective, not the historicist viewpoint of Carson.
I am prewrath in my eschatology and I reject that the Bible teaches imminence. What I do believe is that the Bible teaches that Christ can come back in any generation, not at any moment.
I also believe that the church will first experience the Antichrist’s great tribulation, which will be cut short by the return of Christ to resurrect and rapture believers just before the day of the Lord’s wrath—hence, Prewrath.
But the events surrounding the Lord’s return such as the great tribulation may not happen in our generation. However, there is still the benefit for the believer to take these principles of how to live during the great tribulation and apply them to their lives in the present, learning to live holy, faithful, and blameless before God.
So the “rapture” debate is relevant to spiritual living especially vis-a-vis pretribulational teaching that says that the church will not suffer under Antichrist. In short, there are implications if one theology rejects Jesus’ warnings in Matthew 24 and one theology embraces them as applicable.
I hope that helps.
Thanks,
Alan
Alan,
I would agree that there are ramifications to one’s view on the rapture. I lean post-trib myself. I do think a sort of “escapism” can sometimes be promoted by popular views of pre-trib rapture teaching.
I don’t mean to minimize the importance of ascertaining the best way of understanding the NT’s teaching on the end times – and holding and teaching that view. I just mean that more fundamentally than that, there are some important points (such as being prepared to undergo suffering – as you point out) which can get drowned out in the finer points of the debate.
For full-disclosure, I adopt an inaugarated eschatology view or amillennialism of a certain sort – but I’m open to continuing to grow and learn in this area. I realize many good Christians disagree with this position, but it is where I am in my study of Scripture at the moment.
~Bob