I’m in the midst of reading Christianity’s Great Dilemma – Is Jesus Coming Again or Is He Not? Glenn L. Hill is a pastor who changed his mind regarding what the Bible teaches about the Second Coming of Jesus and the related happenings foretold in Scripture. After many years of preaching and teaching the mainstream view of eschatology, Hill was convinced the Bible actually teaches Jesus returned in the first century A.D. just as He said he would and just as his Apostles clearly expected based on their New Testament writings. Hill lays out his argument in an easy-to-read and friendly format.

Whether you believe preterism or covenant eschatology is true, it is worth the time to consider that there are other ways to understand the Biblical passages about the Last Days, the Last Hour, the Second Coming of Jesus, the End of the Age, the Judgement, etc. Preterism and partial-preterism are quickly gaining in the American church. At the very least, it is important to understand the arguments for this view. It is easy for Christians to dismiss the idea out of hand as preposterous. However, it’s much more difficult to refute than one might expect because preterists rely on taking Jesus and the Apostles at their word.

Chapter 6 focuses on The Judgement and contains this thought-provoking passage on pages 97-98.

We associate the Last Days and the End of the World with the time of the Second Coming of Jesus.

(snip)

We also associate the Judgement with the time of the coming of the Lord…

(snip)

The church teaches that at some point yet in our future, Jesus will finally make His second appearance. At that time, all people who have ever lived on Earth will stand before God to be judged. Judgement will be based not on what God knows about us, but on what is found written about us in a record book of our lives. The good people will be there and the bad too! Those of us still living at that time will be there. The multiplied billions of people who have lived and died since creation, will be resurrected back to life and they will be there as well. Somewhere I have read that if everyone who ever lived was alive at one time, we would all be standing seven persons deep, one of top of the other and covering the whole planet. I cannot say whether that is a true assessment of the situation. However, the number of people who have lived on Earth staggers my wildest imagination.

How many thousands of years do you supposed it would take to read from the record book all the deeds everybody has ever done? And can you even imagine how huge such a record book would be? How long would it take to make individual decisions on whether each person is innocent or guilty? But the Christian church teaches that this is what will happen at the Judgement and we are all going to be there to hear our fate! God will decide whether we are saved or lost. The lost He will send into eternal, never-ending torture in a place called hell. The saved He will welcome to heaven for eternity. This is all very bizarre! It is a wonder we can get any thinking person to believe and convert to Christianity!

But that that is not all! The church teaches that when we die, immediately our “immortal soul” (a term not found in the Bible) goes to heaven if we have believed in Jesus. It goes to hell if we did not believe in him. Then, in the future, at Jesus’ Second Coming, our long decayed natural bodies will be resurrected. Our “immortal souls” will leave heaven and hell, and enter our bodies again. Then the judging described in the preceding paragraph begins. How can Christians believe such a scenario? Our God is a reasonable God, and this totally lacks sanity! Think about this! A person who died and went to heaven 500 years before Christ returns, has now got to come back from heaven, stand before God and be judged. Why? Was he sent to heaven in error? Could he end up in the other place? This makes absolutely no sense at all! It appears that a person who has been in hell for 1,000 years will get a break! He will come back to stand and be judged. Why? Was some mistake made when he died? Should he not have been sent to hell? Might he now get to go to heaven, instead of being sent back to hell? What a dilemma Christianity has created for itself!

I have readily admitted to being wrong about many things, but thank God I never did believe these totally unreasonable and unbiblical Judgement Day doctrines taught by the Christian church! How can anyone believe such? It is probably because most Christians have never stopped and really thought about it. Any reasonable, thinking person can easily see real problems here! Let us see if we can find some plausible answers.

This book makes so much more sense than a lot of what I’ve read or heard about the Second Coming of Jesus, the Last Days, the Last Hour, the End of the Age, etc. throughout my life. I think every American Christian should read this book (and a few others) to challenge their beliefs about eschatology.

Jesus said he was “coming soon” multiple times. He said he was coming before that generation standing in front of him would pass away. The Apostles believed Jesus was coming soon and clearly instructed the early church in that belief. Were they deceived? Did they lie?

In 1 John, John told them it was not only the Last Days but that it was the Last Hour. He told this to the readers who received his letter. Did he lie to them? Was he a false prophet? How in the world do we think the Last Hour is now, over 2,000 years later?

The Bible is for us, but it was not written to us as I wrote in The Bible Was Written For Us, But Not To Us. How many interpretation mistakes do we make today because we insist on inserting ourselves into the narrative? And not just us. Every generation does this. We all have grandparents and great-grandparents who were convinced they were living in the “end times” and it was the Last Hour. They have all since passed away without seeing the fulfillment of that.

Do we honestly think John telling the recipients of his letter that it was the Last Hour still somehow applies to us today? That makes no sense at all.

So if we get that part of the timing wrong, what are the odds that we’re getting The Judgement completely wrong as well?

I do know one thing. I don’t believe Jesus was a liar or a false prophet. I don’t believe the Apostles were liars or false prophets. Sadly, some of the End Times views basically teach that. Not explicitly. But if you take them to their logical conclusion, that is what you end up with.

Christianity’s Great Dilemma: Is Jesus Coming Again or Is He Not?