“And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” Matthew 28:20b
Written by Dr. Marcus J. Serven
Introduction:
Our Lord gives a defining picture of the chronology of the world in multiple passages throughout the Gospels. He speaks of “this age” and “the age to come.” In other words, Jesus teaches that there are two “ages” that we should be concerned about, and no others. “This age” refers to the present age in which we now live here on the earth. And the phrase “the age to come” refers to that age which is called the “new heavens and the new earth” where will we live with the Lord in heaven. There are not three ages: this age, an in-between age, and the age to come. There are only two ages.
“This age” in which we now live—our earthly existence—is identified with that time in which the kingdom of God “breaks-through” into human history and grows and expands into every dark corner of the earth. It anticipates the consummation of that kingdom in “the age to come.” The kingdom of God is already present, but it is not yet fulfilled. Hence, there is an over-lap between the two ages. This is sometimes referred to as the “already, but not yet” principle of the kingdom of God. To repeat, the kingdom of God is already present, but it is not yet fulfilled—there is more to come at the consummation of all earth history when Jesus Christ returns.
This way of thinking is often called an “inaugurated eschatology.” Simply stated, inaugurated eschatology is the belief in Christian doctrine that the end times were inaugurated in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, and thus there are both “already” and “not yet” aspects to the kingdom of God. Christians now live as present-day members of the kingdom of God while still anticipating a future consummation. The kingdom of God is both “realized” in the present time, but it is also “anticipated” in the future as greater fulfillments are expected.
Key Bible Passages: (all italics are mine)
“Therefore I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven people, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. And whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.” Matthew 12:31-32
[The Parable of the Weeds explained] “The field is the world, and the good seed is the sons of the kingdom. The weeds are the sons of the evil one, and the enemy who sowed them is the devil. The harvest is the close of the age, and the reapers are the angels. Just as the weeds are gathered and burned with fire, so will it be at the close of the age.” Matthew 13:38-40
[The Parable of the Net] “So it will be at the close of the age. The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” Matthew 13:49-50
“As he sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately, saying, ‘Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the close of the age?’” Matthew 24:3
“And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” Matthew 28:20b
“Jesus said, ‘Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, house and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life.’” Mark 10:29-30
“And he said to them, ‘Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or wife or brothers or parents or children, for the sake of the kingdom of God, who will not receive many times more in this time, and in the age to come eternal life.’” Luke 18:29-30
“And Jesus said to them, ‘The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage, but those who are considered worthy to attain to that age and to the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage, for they cannot die anymore, because they are equal to angels and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection.’” Luke 20:34-36
“Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age?” 1 Corinthians 1:20
“Yet among the mature we do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to pass away. But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.” 1 Corinthians 2:6-8
“In that case the god of this world [in Greek: aeon = age] has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” 2 Corinthians 4:4
“Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen.” Galatians 1:3-5
“…according to the working of his great might that we worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come.” Ephesians 1:19b-21
“As for the rich in the present age, charge them not to be haughty, nor to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy. They are to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share, thus storing up treasure for themselves as a good foundation for the future [lit. “for the coming age”], so that they may take hold of that which is truly life.” 1 Timothy 6:17-19
“For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.” Titus 2:11-14
“For it is impossible, in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away, to restore them again to repentance, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to contempt.” Hebrews 6:4-7
Significant Quotations:
— Cornelis P. Venema (b. 1954)
“In the coming of Christ, the long-awaited coming of God’s kingdom is inaugurated. In the Gospels, both John the Baptist and Jesus announce in their preaching that the kingdom of God ‘is at hand’ (literally, ‘has drawn near’, Matt. 3:2, Mark 1:15). When Christ cast out demons, he testified to the Pharisees that this was evidence that the kingdom of God ‘had come upon them’ (Matt. 12:28). Similarly, the Gospel accounts of Christ’s miracles and the authority with which he commissioned the disciples to preach the gospel of the kingdom serve to confirm that, with his coming, the Old Testament promise regarding the future coming of the kingdom is being fulfilled. Though this kingdom has not yet come in all of its fullness, it has come in the person and work Jesus Christ, in his life, death, resurrection and ascension to the Father’s right hand, whence he presently reigns until all of his enemies have been subdued beneath his feet (1 Cor. 15:25).” (Venema, The Promise of the Future, 26)
— George Eldon Ladd (1911-1982)
“There is a powerful dualism in the New Testament: God’s will is done in heaven; his Kingdom brings it to earth. In the Age to Come, heaven descends to earth and lifts historical existence to a new level of redeemed life (Rev. 21:2-3). This is hinted at, although not elaborated on, in the Gospels. Those who ‘attain to that age and to the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage, for they cannot die any more, because they are equal to angels and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection’ (Lk. 20:35-36). Here is a truly inconceivable order of existence. There are no human analogies to describe existence without the physiological and sociological bonds of sex and family. But this is the will of God: to conquer evil and to bring his people finally into the blessed immortality of the eternal life of the Age to Come.” (Ladd, A Theology of the New Testament, 69)
“If God’s Kingdom is the gift of life bestowed upon his people when he manifests his rule in eschatological glory, and if God’s Kingdom is also God’s rule invading history before the eschatological consummation, it follows that we may expect God’s rule in the present to bring a preliminary blessing to his people. This is in fact what we find. The Kingdom is not only an eschatological gift belonging to the age to come; it is also a gift to be received in the old aeon.” (Ladd, A Theology of the New Testament, 72)
— Anthony A. Hoekema (1913-1988)
“The nature of New Testament eschatology may be summed up under three observations: (1) the great eschatological event predicted in the Old Testament has happened; (2) what the Old Testament writers seems to depict as one movement is now seen to involve two stages: the present age and the age of the future; and (3) the relation between these two eschatological stages is that the blessings of the present age are the pledge and guarantee of greater blessings to come.” (Hoekema, The Bible and the Future, 21-22)
“At this point we should take a look at a theologian who has made a significant contribution to eschatological studies, but who has not received the attention he deserves. I refer to Geerhardus Vos (1862-1949), who was professor of Biblical Theology at Princeton Theological Seminary from 1893-1932…In his Pauline Eschatology, published in 1930, Vos further developed these insights, particularly as they reflected the teachings of the Apostle Paul. For the Old Testament writers, he states, the distinction between ‘this age’ and the ‘age to come’ was thought of simply in terms of chronological succession. But when the Messiah whose coming these Old Testament writers had predicted actually arrived on the scene, the eschatological process had in principle already begun, and therefore the simple scheme of chronological succession between this age or world and the age or world to come was no longer adequate. The Messianic appearance now began to unfold itself into two successive epochs; ‘the age to come was perceived to bear in its womb another age to come’ [Vos, The Pauline Eschatology, 36]…According to Vos, therefore, the New Testament believer lives both in the age or world and in the age or world to come at the same time. Vos would therefore agree with Dodd that there is a sense in which the age to come has already arrived. He would differ from Dodd, however, in maintaining that there will be a future Parousia or Second Coming of Christ, and a future consummation of the age or world to come in which all its potentialities will be fully realized.” (Hoekema, The Bible and the Future, 298-299)
— Herman Ridderbos (1909-2007)
“The coming of the Lord can for this reason not only be a motive for sanctification, but also a source and ground of comfort in the present ‘affliction,’ a word that does not merely refer to an incidental setback of difficulty, but very definitely characterizes the last phase of the present world preceding the coming of Christ. Therefore the revelation of the Lord Jesus from heaven also signifies rest for those who are now in this distress (2 These. 1:6-ff). Because of this hope of the glory of God the church may glory in this affliction (Rom 5: 2-5). Affliction, suffering, and glory frequently occur in one context (Rom. 8:18), indeed in the former lie the announcement and proof of the latter (Rom. 8:19-23). Hope in the appearing of Christ (Tit. 2:13) is accordingly the distinguishing mark of the Christian life (Rom. 8:24; Gal. 5:5). As the one who will appear, Christ is the hope of glory (Col. 1:27), or in the absolute sense ‘our hope’ (1 Tim. 1:1), with whose manifestation the church, too, will be manifested in glory (Col. 3:4). It is this glory which is time and again held out in prospect to the church that now finds itself in distress and suffering (1 Cor. 15:43; 2 Cor. 3:18, 4:17; Eph. 1:18; Phil. 3:4; 2 Thess. 2:14; 2 Tim. 1:10), and on which its hope is set (Col. 1:5; 1 Thess. 5:8; Tit. 1:2, 2:13, 3:7). And with what intensity this expectation is charged all those passages prove in which the apostle strongly accentuates the ‘not yet’ of the present. These the sparks shoot, as it were, to and fro between the two poles (Rom. 8:18-ff; 2 Cor. 4:16-18); there it is evident what a living and fervent longing supports and glows through all the preaching of the apostle (cf. Rom 7:24, 25, 8:23, et al.).” (Ridderbos, Paul: An Outline of His Theology, 488-489).
— Dr. Kim Riddlebarger (b. 1954)
“Both Jesus and Paul repeatedly spoke of “this age” and the “age to come” as two successive and qualitatively distinct eschatological periods. In three places in the synoptic Gospels, our Lord explicitly contrasted “this age” with “an age to come.” In Matthew 12:32 Jesus spoke of the impossibility of forgiveness for blasphemy against the Holy Spirit either “in this age or the age to come.” In Luke 18:29-30 Jesus spoke about the kingdom of God in response to the unbelief expressed by the rich young ruler. Jesus said, “I tell you the truth…no one who has left home or wife or brothers or parents or children for the sake of the kingdom of God will fail to receive many times as much in this age and, in the age to come, eternal life.” In Luke 20:34-35 Jesus declared, “The people of this age neither marry nor are given in marriage. But those who are considered worthy of taking part in that age and in the resurrection from the dead will neither marry nor be given in marriage, and they can no longer die; for thy are like the angels. They are God’s children, since they are children of the resurrection.” These texts make it clear that our Lord understood these two ages as successive and qualitatively distinct.” (Riddlebarger, A Case for Amillennialism, 82)
— Dr. Craig G. Bartholomew (b. 1961) and Dr. Michael W. Goheen (b. 1955)
“But if the old has passed away and the new has come, why do evil and death remain in the world? Paul’s letters are charged with the same tension between the “already” and “not yet” aspects of the kingdom of God that we have seen in Jesus’s own teachings but with some differences in emphasis. For Paul, the kingdom is here already in that Jesus’s death brings an end to the old and his resurrection inaugurates the new. The Spirit is described as a deposit (or down payment) on the coming kingdom (2 Cor. 1:22; 5:5; Eph. 1:14). A deposit is not merely an IOU or promise for the future; instead, it is a real payment given now as a guarantee that in the future the rest will be paid. The Spirit is also pictured as first fruits, the first part of the harvest, ready to be enjoyed now, and tangible evidence that the remainder of the harvest will also come (Rom. 8:23). The kingdom has not yet arrived for us in its fullness. We remain in a world that has not yet been fully delivered from the influence of evil, demonic powers (2 Cor. 4:4). We are still surrounded by the darkness of sin and rebellion against God (Eph. 2:2-3), even while we anticipate the full revelation of God’s kingdom in which those things shall be no more. Thus, in Paul’s thought there is no clearly marked threshold between the present age and the age to come. We live in the in-between time, in which the two ages overlap.” (Bartholomew and Goheen, The Drama of Scripture, 206-207)
Resources for Further Study:
Bartholomew, Craig G. and Michael W. Goheen. The Drama of Scripture: Finding Our Place in the Biblical Story, Second Edition. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2014.
Elwell, Walter A. ed. Evangelical Dictionary of Theology. Second Edition. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2001.
- “Age, Ages” by George E. Ladd
- “Eschatology” by Frederick F. Bruce
- “Kingdom of Christ, God, Heaven” by George E. Ladd
- “Millennium, Views of the” by Robert G. Clouse
- “Realized Eschatology” by Gary M. Burge
- “Second Coming of Christ” by Millard J. Ericksen
- “This Age, The Age to Come” by Gary M. Burge
Hoekema, Anthony. The Bible and the Future. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1979.
Ladd, George Eldon. A Theology of the New Testament. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1974.
Ladd, George Eldon. The Presence of the Future: An Eschatology of Biblical Realism. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1974.
Lloyd-Jones, Martyn. The Kingdom of God. Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1992.
Ridderbos, Herman. The Coming of the Kingdom. Raymond O. Zorn, ed. H. de Jongste, trans. Philadelphia, PA: The Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing company, 1962.
Ridderbos, Herman. Paul: An Outline of His Theology. John R. De Witt, Trans. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1975.
Riddlebarger, Kim. The Case for Amillennialism: Understanding the End Times. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2003.
Venema, Cornelis P. The Promise of the Future. Edinburgh, Scotland: The Banner of Truth Trust, 2000.
Vos, Geerhardus. The Kingdom of God and the Church. Originally published in 1903; Dallas, TX: Fontes Press, Reprint, 2017.
Vos, Geerhardus. The Pauline Eschatology. Originally published in 1930; Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, Reprint 1979.
Dr. Marcus J. Serven, ThM and DMin
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