Ehrman’s Problem 18: Confused About Jesus’ Coming “Soon”

Ehrman entitled what he considers the last of the Bible’s explanations for suffering, “God has the Last Word: Jewish Christian Apocalypticism.” The apocalyptic answer, in short, is that at the Judgment God will resolve all the injustice that is in the world.

Let’s start with Ehrman’s preliminary objection that the Biblical authors said that the resolution of all evil was coming “soon,” but that obviously didn’t happen. As Ehrman put it, “When the author of Revelation expected that the Lord Jesus ‘was coming soon’ (Rev. 22:20), he really meant ‘soon’—not two thousand years later” (247).

But remember that terms like “soon” or “quickly” are always relative to the importance of the thing referred to. For example, if a waitress says my entrée is coming soon, I suspect she means in the next five minutes. Similarly, if the Honda mechanic says my car will be done soon, I think (hope!) he means within the next 30 minutes. But when I tell my friends that my dad is taking us on a cruise soon, it still might be two weeks away. One man told me he was retiring soon and was talking about two or three months! Now (and this might make you glad you’re not in one of my classes) sometimes I tell my students that they will all be dead “soon” even though some of them are still very young. What I mean by that—and I do mean it—is that even if some of them live another 60, 70, or 80 years, their death is coming “soon”! Do you see how these terms are relative to the importance of the thing they’re in relation to?

Well, let me be very clear, when it comes to the End-of-All-Things-as-We-Know-Them, to the Second Coming of Christ where Revelation tells us that people will beg the mountains to fall on them (Rev. 6:16), and to the FINAL JUDGMENT where people will be sent forever to Heaven or Hell—this is coming soon! Really soon! For many, no matter how far off, it is coming waaay too soon!

So in 2 Peter 3:4-10 we read:

They will say, “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.” For they deliberately overlook this fact, that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God, and that by means of these the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished. But by the same word the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly. But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.

Of course Ehrman calls these words “sophistry” and a “redefinition of what ‘soon’ might mean” (247), but where Ehrman errs is that this isn’t a redefinition of “soon.” It is the definition of “soon” because, again, words like “soon” are always understood in relationship to the significance of the event involved.

In the meantime, Christians are commanded to live in expectancy (Matt. 25). I don’t know whether Jesus will return in my lifetime or not, but either way, we’re all going to see Him soon.

Revelation 1:7: “Look, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him; and all the peoples of the earth will mourn because of him. So shall it be! Amen.”