3.02. Why Study the Eschatological Views of the Early Church Fathers
Chapter Two:
Why Study the Eschatological Views of the Early Church Fathers
It is a fair question to ask: "Why do we care about the eschatological views of the early church fathers?" We as evangelicals emphatically agree with Hodge that "the true method of theology. . . assumes that the Bible contains all the facts or truths which form the contents of theology."5 As Ryrie cogently put it: The fact that something was taught in the first century does not make it right (unless taught in the canonical Scriptures), and the fact that something was not taught until the nineteenth century does not make it wrong unless, of course, it is unscriptural.6 In the words of our Baptist forefathers: "The Holy Scripture is the only sufficient, certain and infallible rule of all saving knowledge, faith, and obedience" and "the whole counsel of God concerning all things necessary for His own glory, man’s salvation, faith and life, is either expressly set down or necessarily contained in the Holy Scripture: Unto which nothing at any time is to be added, whether by new revelation of the Spirit, or traditions of men."7 Therefore, since everything we need for an adequate understanding of doctrine is to be found in the Bible, are the doctrinal positions of our predecessors irrelevant to our understanding of theology? Not at all. There is, in fact, much value in studying historical theology.8 The value is interpretive. As stated by Erickson, historical theology "makes us more self-conscious and self-critical, more aware of our own presuppositions."9 It assists us in learning to "do theology" by showing us "how others have done it before us."10 Finally, it "may provide a means of evaluating a particular idea."11 It shows us how a particular doctrine began, evolved and, importantly for purposes of this paper, "sometimes deviated from biblical truth." In sum, "historical theology attempts to understand the formation of doctrines, their development and change -- for better or worse."12 Not surprisingly, the period of the early church fathers is considered the most important in historical theology.13 This is true for two reasons: First, the early church fathers were "close to the events of the life of Christ and the apostolic era." Moreover, the second century apologists took the lead in defending Christianity against its first barrage of intellectual criticism.14
Thus, it behooves us to understand the eschatological views of the early church fathers. This is especially so since one charge frequently laid against dispensational premillennialists is that our system cannot pass the test of historical theology. Dispensationalism cannot be true, so the assertion goes, because it is recent in origin.15 Charles Ryrie calls this the "historical attack."16 Of course, the historical attack on dispensational premillennialism ignores the overwhelming evidence that the church fathers of the first three centuries AD were uniformly premillennial, not amillennial or postmillennial. It also fails to recognize that a change in church dogma does not necessarily indicate a change for the better. Indeed, one can profitably learn as much from the mistakes of those who come before us as from their triumphs. Unfortunately, at least in the area of eschatology, the progression of doctrinal understanding leading up to the paradigm shift occasioned by the Edict of Milan was not for the better. It involved two basic interpretive errors that remain with us today. The first critical error of the second century fathers -- the failure to keep distinct the nation of Israel and the church -- is discussed in Chapter Three.