Early Pentecostals maintained the conviction that the twentieth-century outpouring of the Holy Spirit was an eschatological event signifying the imminent, even immediate return of Jesus Christ.
There were many signs that seemed to point to Christ’s imminent return. The great earthquake in San Francisco on April 18, 1906, occurred just four days after W.J. Seymour opened the Azusa Street Mission. For many Pentecostal preachers, this was more than a coincidence, it was one of the signs of the times. Azusa preacher Frank Bartleman wrote a tract in which he attributed the San Francisco earthquake to “the voice of God to the people on the Pacific Coast.”[1] The earthquake, along with the advent of World War I, the communist revolution in Russia, the flu pandemic of 1918, and the Great Depression all contributed to the rise of fundamentalist dispensationalism. Again and again, the Pentecostal preachers cried out, “Jesus is coming soon!”
Throughout the twentieth century, Pentecostal eschatology deteriorated into eschatological speculation. Anyone who has been involved in Evangelical and Pentecostal circles since the last three decades of the twentieth century will remember the series of popular books authored by Hal Lindsey: The Late Great Planet Earth (1970), There’s a New World Coming (1973), The 1980’s: Countdown to Armageddon (1980), and others. Lindsey’s books are representative of the eschatology embraced by many Pentecostals. The problem with this type of eschatological speculation is that somewhere along the way Pentecostal eschatology was no longer integrated with the mission of the church. Further, there are some very real dangers involved in this type of speculation, not the least of which is to link the authority of sacred Scripture to an interpretive scheme that can only lead to speculation and dubious conclusions. After years of interpretation and reinterpretation, the dispensational scheme has begun to lose credibility. The end result is that the church has no credible eschatological hope or mission.
Pentecostals must seek to reclaim the integration of eschatological hope and mission. Ray H. Hughes has proclaimed:
There is no greater motivation for evangelism than the belief in the imminent return of our Lord. . . Our outreach of evangelism is proportionate to our vision of His soon coming . . . . Any man who allows the return of our Lord to possess him and to grip him cannot live without a burden for the lost . . . . When there is a waning interest in our Lord’s return, there is a corresponding lack of interest in evangelism . . . . For this reason, the church should renew and recapture the vision of His return. It must again be fresh on our minds. It must dominate again our lives. It must influence everything we do, because it is our hope, it is our comfort, and it is our future.[2]
As the Pentecostal community moves into its second century, there needs to be serious consideration given to how eschatological hope and mission will guide the church. Our present situation is not unlike that of the first-century church, who preached of the imminent return of Jesus (Revelation 22:7, 12, 20), only to be forced to consider the possibility that His coming might be delayed (2 Peter 3:8-13). After a century of proclaiming that the return of Jesus Christ is soon—imminent—the Pentecostal church must develop and articulate an eschatology that is not held captive to speculation which must be reinterpreted decade after decade.
The Pentecostal Movement was birthed in the midst of an eschatological event, the coming of the Spirit, which nurtured an eschatological hope. Eschatological event and hope gave Pentecostals the sense of being an eschatological people with a mission—tarrying until He comes. The challenge is to go into a new century as a Movement without losing any of these essential elements. Pentecostals must understand that the imminence of Christ’s return does not necessarily imply immediacy. To believe in the imminence of Christ’s return is an expression of the eschatological pathos of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit keeps the anticipation of the Kingdom alive in our souls. The Spirit groans and we groan, in anticipation of the coming Kingdom. The Spirit makes us restless—it seems we can’t wait. This restless anticipation is our motivation for mission. In this context, imminence may be understood in terms of the suddenness of Christ’s return. It has been two thousand years since the Jerusalem Pentecost event. Christians have been anticipating the great “Day of the Lord” for centuries. It will come, and when it comes, it will be sudden (Mark 13:35-37; Luke 21:34-36; 1 Thessalonians 5:2).
The last words of Jesus in the Scriptures are: “Behold, I am coming quickly, and My reward is with Me, to render to every man according to what he has done” (Revelation 22:12). Redemption is eschatological, that is, redemption is completed at the end of the age. Everything that the believer enjoys in Christ in this present age is a foretaste of the glory that shall be revealed. There are various theological themes prominent within the contemporary Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements. It seems that many Pentecostals are no longer yearning for the coming kingdom of God, but are at home in this present age as long as they can be healthy and rich. However, the heart of the gospel is that Jesus came that death might be defeated. “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23). Death is no respecter of persons. The healthy and sick, rich and poor will die. It is the promise of the resurrection of the dead that is the hope of the Christian. “If we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied” (1 Corinthians 15:19). The suffering and death associated with this present age will be destroyed with the revelation of the new heavens and new earth (Revelation 21:1-4).
[1] Frank Bartleman, Azusa Street. (South Plainfield, NJ: Bridge Publishing Inc., 1980), 53.
[2]Ray H. Hughes, “Until Men Are Ready for His Soon Coming” Church of God Evangel (22 Oct 1973), 15-17.
