Journal: Westminster Theological Journal
Volume: WTJ 49:2 (Fall 1987)
Article: Eschatology Begins with Creation
Author: Howard Griffith

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WTJ 49:2 (Fall 1987) p. 387

Eschatology Begins with Creation*

Howard Griffith

How can raising the subject of eschatology provoke reaction as diverse as anger or a yawn from many Christians? No doubt the lack of consensus among Christians, the number of options, the inherent complexity of the subject, and especially the failure to see eschatology as the heart of biblical revelation lie at the bottom of the problem. Anthony Hoekema’s book should go some way to helping the frustrated, bored, or agnostic student of this subject.

Hoekema’s goal is to set out the Bible’s teaching about the future. To this end, he seeks to show that the Scriptures represent the redemptive kingdom established by Christ as coming to realization in both the present and future (not exclusively in either). Pursuant to this thesis, the book is divided into two parts, “Inaugurated Eschatology” (the author finds this term more descriptive and less open to misunderstanding than the more popular “realized eschatology”), and “Future Eschatology.”

Part I is a development of the author’s thesis that the kingdom of God has already been brought to planet earth while not having yet reached its consummate development. Hoekema devotes the first chapter to OT eschatology, primarily responding to the claim that the OT does not have an eschatological outlook. This claim he answers, showing in the various strata of the literature the expectation of a coming Redeemer who will fulfill the official functions of the theocracy as a suffering servant, the coming of God’s kingdom with the inauguration of a new covenant, restoration for Israel, the outpouring of the Spirit, the day of the Lord, and a new heaven and earth. The author does not attempt to relate to each other these 11 eschatological realities” (p. 11). In the remainder of the first part

* Anthony A. Hoekema: The Bible and The Future (Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans, 1979. x, 343. $16.95).

WTJ 49:2 (Fall 1987) p. 388

(chaps. 2–6) Hoekema seeks to lay out the NT eschatological teaching. From various angles Hoekema shows that the great message of the NT is fulfillment. The future hope of the CT has been fulfilled in Christ. His suffering and glory are the center of all eschatological hope (e.g. he notes the NT emphasis on the language of “once” and “once for all” in reference to Christ’s work, p. 16). In him, the kingdom of God has decisively come, but its presence is not consummate. What had seemed to the prophets one complex of events unfolds in two stages, so that there exists a kind of tension for the believer and for the cosmos between present possession of salvation and its richest expression, still awaited. There is continuity, though, between present...

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