Apocalypse and Eschatology

Apocalypse is also supposed to describe a particular form of eschatology, particularly beliefs about the end of the world. This is the sense in which the word is used in Ernst Kasemann’s famous claim that apocalyptic is the mother of Christian theology. Kasemann meant that early Christians believed in the imminent return of Jesus, and this expectation shaped their entire outlook. Kasemann said that it was characteristic of apocalyptic eschatology to acknowledge that the world is not yet subjected to God’s will, but that the subjection of the world has already begun, begun so thoroughly that it is in sight. This is the perspective of Paul, Kasemann said, an “no perspective could be more apocalyptic.”

Christopher Rowland provides a fuller description of the eschatological perspective that is usually thought to be embedded in apocalypses: “the doctrine of the two ages, a pessimistic attitude towards the present, supernatural intervention as the only basis for redemption, and an urgent expectation of a dawn of a new age” (Open Heaven, 26).

But there have been challenges to this particular definition of apocalyptic eschatology. Collins claims that there is a consistent apocalyptic eschatology but it is not about the imminent end of the world. Rather, “All apocalypses . . . involve a transcendent eschatology that looks for retribution beyond the bounds of history” (Apocalyptic Imagination, 11). Final judgment, rather than an imminent end, is the characteristic feature of apocalyptic eschatology.

Christopher Rowland has mounted a more fundamental challenge, arguing that the role of eschatology in apocalyptic literature has been overplayed and that not all apocalypses include any particular view of eschatology. This involves a rather thorough revision of what is meant by apocalypse. Instead of relating it to visions of the end, he says the key is the revelation of mysteries. He quotes Isaiah 64:1, the plea that God would “rend the heavens” to appear and “solve the many riddles of existence which presented themselves. The answer to this desperate plea is found in apocalyptic. The unveiling of the counsels of God directly to the seer and thence to his readers meant that the latter were being offered an answer directly from the mouth of God himself, apparently without any risk of contradiction” (Open Heaven, 11). 

What he calls the “two biblical apocalypses, Daniel and Revelation” are “above all disclosures of the divine mysteries” (11). From a comparison of the two, he concludes, “It is true that some common ideas seem to be present, e.g., resurrection, the tendency towards a panoramic view of history, urgent eschatological expectation and the vindication of the righteous. Nevertheless the unifying factor which joins both these apocalypses and separates them from other contemporary literature is the conviction that runs through both, that man is able to know about the divine mysteries by means of revelation, so that God’s eternal purposes may be disclosed and man, as a result, may see history in a totally new light.” The focus of apocalyptic is found in Daniel 2:28: “There is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries” (13-14). Elsewhere, he writes, “Apocalyptic seems essentially to be about the revelation of divine mysteries through visions or some other form of immediate disclosure of heavenly truths” (70).

In short, Rowland argues that “we ought not to think of apocalyptic as being primarily a matter of either a particular literary type or distinctive subject-matter, though common literary elements and ideas may be ascertained. Rather, the common factor is the belief that God’s will can be discerned by means of a mode of revelation which unfolds directly the hidden things of God” (14). Some apocalypses are more interested in revealing the topography of the unseen world than in setting out a timetable of the end. In some apocalypses, the eschatological dimension fades to the background; circumstances, not genre, determine whether or not eschatology plays a dominant role in this literature (28). But “it is not easy to construct an apocalyptic eschatology which differs in any marked way from the ideas held by other writers at the time” (71). 

Rowland’s definition of apocalypse better fits the original meaning of the term in the original “apocalyptic text” – the book of Revelation. Revelation certainly predicts the end of something, and predicts that it will happen “soon,” but the term apocalupsis itself means something more basic: It is about an unveiling, a disclosure of and by Jesus Christ of the coming works of God by the Lamb and the seven Spirits.