Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Reformed Christology and the "CNN" theory of the Second Coming.

I was looking over Schmid's Doctrinal Theology of the Evangelical Lutheran Church for my book and noticed that David Hollaz (Preus describes him as being part of the "bronze age" of Lutheran orthodoxy) made a very interesting argument about the omnipresence of Christ's human nature.  He observed that it would be impossible for Jesus to fulfill his promise that "every eye will see me, even they that pierced me" without reference to the omnipresence of his human nature.

This apparently has never occurred to the Reformed- but it has occurred to their eschatologically obsessed cousins, the Evangelical Dispensationalists!

According to them, because their is no communication of glory to Christ's human nature, the prophecy that every "eye will see him" will be fulfilled via CNN (or they would probably prefer Fox News).  

The idea is that we'll all be watching the battle of Armageddon on TV, and so at the last moment, before the EU, the Chinese and the Russian (or whoever) blow themselves up with Atomic weapons, Jesus will intervene and we'll all see him.  

See, who needs the communicatio idiommatum when you got CNN?

7 comments:

  1. That is not what I was told when I went to the International House of Prayer! (Yep, I've been there. Long story...)

    Anyways, they said Jesus would descend in the East (at the Mount of Olives), and then basically have a victory lap across the whole globe.

    I myself may delight in difficult and obscure theology, but when it sees "Every eye shall see", I don't question how. Similarly, I don't question "This is My Body; This is My Blood". There are just some things that are (and that shall be). Because God said so :P

    ReplyDelete
  2. Tim-

    I'm actually not familiar with the International House of Prayer. What's that?

    Actually I'm certain that there are several views. I just mention the one I've heard on TBN and in the Bible of Dispensationalism, "The Late Great, Planet Earth."

    ReplyDelete
  3. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I believe Lenski explained this miracle of all seeing as relating to the collapse of space and time at the second coming. All can see because space and time and the limmitations connected with them will not exist. I am not sure that is the right answer but I believe that was Lenski's attempt at dealing with that promise.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Why is the post (#6) asking about the definition of "bronze age" Lutheran not showing?

    ReplyDelete
  6. Carl- Nice to see you reading my blog.

    I don't know why it's not. I certainly didn't remove it.

    The "Bronze" age just means kind of the lowest point. Most interpreters think that Hollaz being pre-Christian Wolf is not a Rationalist. He's not a Pietist either. But he shows some signs of going in that direction.

    ReplyDelete