The Eschatological Timeline

The run-up: before and at the Cross

Even before the Cross the line is being prepared. Enoch and Elijah are taken up without dying (Genesis 5:24; 2 Kings 2:11). Elijah's spirit rests on John the Baptist (Luke 1:17). In Christ's ministry, "I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven" (Luke 10:18). Then the Cross, the Resurrection, and the enemies put under His feet (Psalm 110:1; 1 Corinthians 15:25), with the righteous dead raised (Matthew 27:52-53), and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, sealing those alive and joining the dead in Christ. The chart also marks the Reign of Antichrist, "the 70th Week of Daniel" (Daniel 9:24-27); on the antichrist as a present spirit rather than only a future ruler, see the Antichrist.

The Spirit runs all through it: the Spirit in the prophets and the chosen; the Spirit received and then taken from King Saul; the Spirit received and remaining on King David (1 Samuel 16:13-14).

The Church Age (now): the spiritual temple restored

This is the long middle, "time as we experience it," and the chart names what God is doing in it, straight from Ezekiel:

Ezekiel 37 · the dry bones

Life to the bones, the uniting of Judah and Israel and all the nations in one Spirit, through the Body of Christ, His Church and Temple, which is God and Christ, our only true temple of believers, since the beginning; that spiritual temple is being restored.

The believer and the church are that temple now (1 Corinthians 3:16; Ephesians 2:21-22; see the Temple). And "the fulfilled priesthood is restored in Christ and the faithful believer. Mercy, justice and righteousness replace sacrifices, because God always desired those things over sacrifice" (Hosea 6:6; Micah 6:6-8; Matthew 9:13).

Throughout the age: trials and testing of believers

Running under the whole line is the disciplining and testing of God's people, the chart's recurring theme:

• Individual trials and testing, as in Abraham, David, Paul, the disciples, and Christ our Lord and Savior, whom we must follow.
• National, as in Egypt, Babylon, Israel, Sodom, the flood, and the wilderness.
• The "tested and tried parts of the ever-growing Body of Christ" (John 16:33; 1 Peter 1:6-7; Hebrews 12:6).

The consummation: sealing, judgment, the eternal state

At the end of the line: the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, sealing those alive and joining the dead in Christ (Acts 2:17; Ephesians 1:13-14). "Salvation to the faithful who are alive, attaining that for which they were sealed in the Holy Spirit, by the shedding of the perishable for the imperishable" (1 Corinthians 15:51-54; 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17). Then the Judgment of the Wicked (Revelation 20:11-15), and "when Christ's Body is complete, everyone will be in their eternal state" (Matthew 25:46).

The hinge: the two servants

The chart ends, rightly, on the two servants, who was found faithful and who was not:

Matthew 24:45-47 · the faithful servant

Who then is the faithful and wise servant, whom his master has set over his household, to give them their food at the proper time? Blessed is that servant whom his master will find so doing when he comes. Truly, I say to you, he will set him over all his possessions.

Matthew 24:48-51 · the wicked servant

But if that wicked servant says to himself, "My master is delayed," and begins to beat his fellow servants and eats and drinks with drunkards, the master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him… and will cut him in pieces and put him with the hypocrites. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.