THE END (GOAL) OF THE AGES HAS COME!
Don K. Preston
“Now
all these things happened to them as examples, and they were written for
our admonition, upon whom the ends of the ages have arrived.” (1
Corinthians 10:11)
Even
on a cursory reading this passage is significant since Paul says the end
of the ages had arrived. He clearly was not saying the end of the
Christian Age, or the end of time
had arrived, or else he was patently wrong. So, what did Paul mean?
The
Jews only believed in two primary ages. Jesus and the New Testament
writers concurred with that doctrine. The Jews believed in “this age”
and the “age to come.” Their “this age” was the age of Moses and the
Law, and the “age to come” was the age of Messiah and the New Covenant.
The age of Moses and the Law was to end, while the age of Messiah and
the New Covenant was to be eternal. Based on this, Paul could not have
been predicting the end of the Christian age.
Two
Greek words help us appreciate this passage. The first is translated as
“ends,” and is the word tele,
from telos. This word often
means termination, e. g. “the end of all things has drawn near” (1 Peter
4:7). However, this is not the whole story. Even when the idea of
termination is present, there is another idea—the
goal of that which was being
terminated has been reached. (See the Lexicons for all the derivatives
of teleios). Thus, to say that
something was coming to an end,
indicated that it had reached its prophetic goal. Paul said that
Christ was “the end of the law for righteousness, to all those who
believe” (Romans 10:4). Not only was Jesus the end of the Law
objectively, since he brought that Old Covenant to its end, but he was
the goal of that Old World. As
Galatians 3:23f says, the Law was a guardian of those under that system
to bring them to Christ, and “the faith.” When that system was fully set
in place, the Law was supposed to end. Thus, the end (tele)
of the Law was not only the termination
of the Law, but the goal of the
Law.
For
Paul to say therefore, that the end of the ages had arrived was an
incredible statement! But, he did not stop with the word
tele, he spoke of his
contemporary brethren as those “upon whom the ends of the ages
has come.” He used another
distinctive word, the perfect tense of
katantao. This word is used twelve times in the New Testament,
and it means “to arrive at a destination” This word is used, normally,
to speak of arriving at a destination of travel.
Four
times katantao is used in a
theological sense.
First, In Acts 26:7, Paul writes
that the twelve tribes were serving God night and day, hoping to “come”
unto the resurrection. Resurrection was the prophetic goal of Israel’s
Messianic promises.
Second, Paul chided the
Corinthians for being puffed up with pride. They thought of themselves
as the “all in all” of maturity. However, Paul asks the rhetorical
question, “Did the gospel come unto you only?” (1 Corinthians 14:36).
The Corinthians were not the “final destination” of the Gospel!
Third,
In Ephesians 4:13, Paul
uses katantao when he says the
charismata were given to equip the church to do the work of the ministry
“until we all come (katantao) to
the unity of the faith. The unity of the faith was the
goal anticipated by the praxis
of the charismata. And, it was the arrival of that unity of the faith
that would not only be the goal but the
termination of the charismata (1 Corinthians 13:8f). Termination
and goal go hand in hand here.
Fourth, in Philippians 3:11, Paul
said it was his fervent prayer to “attain” (katantao)
to the resurrection from the dead. Just like resurrection was the goal
of Israel’s eschatological and Messianic aspirations, Paul, who preached
nothing but the hope of Israel (Acts 24; 25; 26; 28) said that the
resurrection was his desired goal.
With
the use of telos and
katantao then, Paul was saying
that not only was the termination of the previous ages at hand, but
the goal of all previous ages was being
achieved! This has incredible implications!
WHAT WAS THE GOAL OF THE AGES?
To
see the implications of Paul’s statement, we need to remind ourselves of
the goal of the ages. What did all previous ages point to? The answer
can be couched in different terms.
The
goal of the ages was the Age to Come—(Luke
20:33f), when “this age” would come to an end (Matthew 13:39-40–
Galatians 3:23f).
The
destination of the previous ages was
the age of the resurrection (Luke 20:33f), wherein sons of God
would be produced by resurrection, (not by the marrying and giving in
marriage like under the Old Covenant), and could never die. Repeatedly,
Paul said that believers were joined with Christ’s death, burial and
resurrection in baptism, raised to walk in newness of life, forgiven of
sin, and were thereby sons of God by faith (Galatians 3:26-28; Romans
6:3f; Colossians 2:11-13). He also said that now, in Christ, “there is
no condemnation” (Romans 8:1f), as opposed to existence under the
Law—his “This Age”—where, “I was alive once, without the law, but the
commandment came, sin revived, and I died” (Romans 7:7f). The then still
present age of the Law was still the ministration of death (2
Corinthians 3:6f), but was “nigh unto passing away” (Hebrews 8:13).
The
goal of all the previous ages, and
God’s eternal purpose, was the arrival of the Age in which, “He
might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in
heaven and which are on earth—in Him” (Ephesians 1:10). This was to be
accomplished in the “fullness of times” and, as we know from Ephesians
2:11f, was being accomplished, not in a restoration of national Israel,
but in the body of Christ, the church!
The
destination anticipated by the previous ages was, in a word,
the kingdom, and this is why our
text is so important. According to leading millennialists, the Church
Age, proclaimed by Paul, was a total
mystery to the previous Ages! Pentecost says, “The existence of
this present age which was to interrupt God’s established program with
Israel, was a mystery (Matthew 13:11). He adds, “This whole age with its
program was not revealed in the Old Testament.”
So,
Paul said the goal of the previous ages
had arrived. However, what was occurring when Paul wrote
was the Church age! According to
the millennialists, the Kingdom age,
which is not the Church age, is the true goal of all the previous
ages. However, since Paul said that what was happening when he wrote was
the goal of the previous ages, then it cannot be true that the
restoration of national Israel is in fact, the goal of all previous
ages.
If
the Church was the goal of the previous ages, then the church is not a
“temporary interruption” of God’s kingdom plans. Paul says that what was
happening in his day, through his ministry—and don’t forget that he
proclaimed the “hope of Israel”—was in fact the goal of all previous
ages. Therefore, the Church age was the fulfillment of the “hope of
Israel,” and was the goal of all previous ages! The millennial paradigm
is fundamentally flawed.
THE GOAL OF THE AGES AND THE END OF THE
MILLENNIUM
We
can only mention this briefly. However, it is widely admitted that the
New Creation is the ultimate eschatological goal. Isaiah foretold this
new world (Isaiah 65-66), and Paul taught that the New Creation was a
nascent, but not yet perfected, reality, in Christ: “If any man be in
Christ, he is a new creation, old things are passed away, behold, all
things are become new!” (2 Corinthians 5:17, see Ephesians 4; Colossians
3, etc.).
In
Revelation, the promised New Creation lies
at the end of the millennium,
after the passing of the old world (Revelation 20:11f)! So, the New
Creation lies at the end of the millennium; the New Creation is the
“goal of the ages.” But, Paul said the goal of the ages had arrived.
Therefore, the end of the millennium was near when Paul wrote in 1
Corinthians 10!
This
is corroborated by the fact that at the end of the millennium, Satan was
to be destroyed (Revelation 20:11f), and Paul, in Romans 16:20, said
that Satan’s demise was near. Thus, for Paul to say that the goal of the
ages had arrived has profound implications for our understanding of the
millennium.
THE GOAL OF THE AGES AND UNIVERSALISM
Paul’s statement that the goal of the ages had arrived also has severe
consequences for the doctrine of Universalism. There are those who claim
that with the Parousia, all men are saved, regardless of morality, or
lack thereof, doctrine, or anything else. I have in my files exchanges
in which so called Preterist Universalists affirmed that since AD 70
there is no such thing as salvation by faith, there is no such thing in
fact, as sin!
Yet,
when Paul says that the goal of the previous ages had arrived, this has
incredible application for this concept. Paul said the goal of the
previous ages was “the faith,” the gospel system of salvation by grace
through faith (Ephesians 1:9f; Galatians 3:23f). Now if the goal of the
previous ages was the gospel system, how can it be affirmed that after
just 40 years, the goal of all previous ages was terminated? Consider:
If, as Paul affirms, the gospel system was the goal of the previous
ages:
1)
The gospel, the goal of all previous ages, is a system of justification
by grace through faith. Thus, there was not to be another goal of the
ages that would annul the gospel of salvation by grace through faith.
2)
The gospel, the goal of all previous ages, condemns, in no uncertain
terms, those who reject Christ as the Son of God (1 John 2:22f).
3)
The gospel, the goal of all previous ages, said that those who abandoned
the gospel after once accepting it and tasting of its blessings,
crucified Christ afresh and were worthy of a punishment worse than
physical death (Hebrews 6; 10).
4)
The gospel, the goal of all the previous ages, teaches that to abandon
Christ and return to a life of rebellion would result in forfeiture of
kingdom blessings (1 Corinthians 6:19f; Galatians 5:19f).
Now
if, as Universalists claim, this gospel message was annulled, giving way
to a system that redeems anyone and everyone guilty of these things—and
worse—then Paul was clearly wrong to claim that the goal of all the
previous ages had arrived!
Paul’s use of these two words (telos
and katantao), to speak of what
was happening in his day is a powerful testimony to the place of the
church in God’s Scheme of Redemption. The blood bought Church was the
goal of the previous ages. This means that the church was not to pass
away with the dissolution of the Jewish Aeon, as some suggest. Would it
not be strange if the goal of the
previous ages endured for only 40 years? Is that what God had in
mind for the “kingdom that shall never pass away”? To suggest that the
church was to pass away after 40 years surely indicates that God could
not be through with the “goal of the ages” quick enough, so that He
could get to . . . what? What other
goal of the previous ages is there in Scripture? It appears to me
that those who are suggesting that the church was to cease at the
Parousia are positing a modified form of the millennial view that the
church really is not the “consummation of God’s program.”
Unless one can demonstrate that Paul had something other than the Church
in mind when he spoke of the goal of the ages, then
the Church was the anticipated destiny of the previous ages. This
destroys the millennial doctrine that the church is a “temporary
interruption” of God’s kingdom plan.
Unless one can demonstrate that Paul had some other goal of the ages in
mind, than the Church, then there is not another destiny of the ages
other than the Church. This means that the New Creation that had broken
into the Old World was about to be perfected, not terminated. And this
means that the gospel of justification by faith, that condemns unbelief,
immorality, and rebellion, did not pass away at the Parousia either.
The
Body of Christ was the eternal purpose of God, and the goal of the
previous ages. Any doctrine that depreciates the honor and the glory of
the church is a Christ dishonoring doctrine. Further, it flies in the
face of Paul’s statement that the Church was the goal of all previous
ages.
