In the terminology of classical Christian theology the word eschatology means ‘the doctrine of the last things’. A discussion of NT eschatology would, under such a definition, treat of the hope of life after physical death, personal immortality, the general resurrection, the last judgment, heaven and hell. This use of the word remains of course in current usage; but in modern biblical discussion ‘eschatology’ is commonly employed in a somewhat different way, which may be defined by the statement that in characteristically eschatological thinking the significance of a series of events in time is defined in terms of the last of their number. The last event is not merely one member of the series; it is the determinative member, which reveals the meaning of the whole. Such thinking inevitably assumes the reality of historical processes, and that they are meaningful; in this, of course, it is fully consistent with Biblical thought as a whole; indeed, it might be said that the Biblical view of history derives its characteristic pattern from the fact that the Bible is a predominantly eschatological book. This is not to say either that the whole of the Bible is written from an eschatological standpoint, or that eschatological writing is not to be found outside the Bible; but the Bible is undoubtedly the classical field of eschatology, dominated as it is by the belief that the Judge of all the earth will do right, but that the right which He does will not necessarily be seen to be right until it is brought to a full end.
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