ESC-04 The End of the Age

When God created the world, his goal was to turn the entire planet into his earthly kingdom. He began by setting up the Garden of Eden as his sanctuary. And he appointed humanity to increase in number, and to spread the borders of the garden to the ends of the earth. But, of course, humanity sinned, and plunged both the human race and creation itself into corruption and death. As a result, the earth still hasn’t been prepared for God, and he still hasn’t brought his kingdom to earth in all its fullness. But God hasn’t given up on his plan. And at the end of the age, he’ll fulfill it — perfectly. He’ll restore his faithful people to life, purge his enemies from his world, establish the new heavens and the new earth as his permanent kingdom, and reign forever from his throne in the New Jerusalem.

This is the fourth lesson in our series Your Kingdom Come: The Doctrine of Eschatology, and we’ve entitled it “The End of the Age.” In this lesson, we’ll continue our study of the last events of history that will finally end this age and fully consummate the age to come.

As we saw in our first lesson in this series, the Old Testament expected God’s kingdom to unfold in three phases: the initial creation of the universe and its creatures; a long period of redemption necessitated by humanity’s fall into sin; and finally, the everlasting eschaton, also called “the age to come.” The eschaton is the ultimate state of the universe after redemption is complete, when God’s heavenly kingdom fills the earth.

We also saw that the New Testament changed these expectations by dividing the eschaton into three stages. The age to come began with the inauguration, which spanned Jesus’ life and earthly ministry, including the foundational work done by his first century apostles and prophets. During the inauguration, this age began to overlap with the age to come. This age is characterized by sin, suffering and death, while the age to come is characterized by God’s blessings for his faithful people.

The second stage of the eschaton is the continuation, which began immediately after the inauguration and will continue until Jesus returns. During the continuation, we suffer the hardships of this age at the same time that we enjoy the beginning blessings of the age to come.