The Danger of “This is That” Theology
Pastor Dave Monreal, Lead Pastor
When I was a young Christian in 1988, a book swept through much of the Evangelical Church. I was too young and not yet a believer when The Late, Great Planet Earth was popular, and this was years before the Left Behind series would become a phenomenon. The book I am referring to is the bestseller, 88 Reasons Why the Rapture will Happen in 1988/On Borrowed Time. 300,000 copies were given away to pastors across the United States and 4.5 million copies were sold.
The author, Edgar C. Whisenant, gave 88 reasons why he believed that the “rapture of the Church” would happen on September 11, 12, or 13, 1988 which fell on the Jewish Holiday of Rash Hash Ana. According to an online article, “Whisenant was quoted as saying ‘Only if the Bible is in error am I wrong; and I say that to every preacher in town’ and ‘if there were a king in this country and I could gamble with my life, I would stake my life on Rosh Hashana 88.’” 1 Whisenant believed that prior to the Millennial reign of Christ there would be a seven year “Tribulation” period where God would turn his focus back on the Jewish people. Because, according to his scheme of theology, the church and Israel are completely distinct, the church needed to be removed prior to this time of tribulation. Jesus would “secretly” return and take his people out of the world at the “rapture” which would be the start of the seven-year period. (As an aside, this is not the position I personally hold to but that is a discussion for another day.) For theology buffs, he also predicted that the final battle of Armageddon would happen on October 4, 1995 and the start of the Millennium would be on December 23, 1995.
Whisenant wasn’t the only “prophet” to declare when the end would be, and the return of Christ would happen. Harold Camping, the radio owner and broadcaster, predicted that the end would begin in September 1994. In the years leading up to Y2K there were many books written showing decisively why this was what God was going to use to usher in the return of Christ. Here is my point, every one of these people pointed to specific current events to prove that their understanding of Bible prophesy was correct. Also, every one of these predictions was wrong.
There is a danger of falling into the “this is that” theological fallacy. 2 In other words, we can look at a world situation or an extreme event and then point to the Bible and say “this” event is “that” prophesy being fulfilled. When it comes to prophesy, much of what is said is descriptive using the language the writers had available at that time. Some may be symbolic of a deeper reality. What is often frustrating about the prognosticators of future events, is when they do say “this is that” and it turns out to be wrong, they do not come out and apologize but instead move on to their next prophetic utterance.
If you are a student of prophesy, look back over your library and see how many of these writers who continue to churn out new books have made prophesies in the past that did not come true. Did they openly admit their error? Because of the puzzling and enigmatic nature of biblical prophecy, I think one needs to approach the subject with a great deal of humility and be willing to admit his mistakes. The more I have studied this topic over the years, the more I realize how little I know and how much I still need to learn.
1https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_C._Whisenant
2 If my memory serves me correctly, I first heard this phrase used by D. A. Carson.
