What Does It Mean to be "Living in the Last Days?"

“And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh,” Peter (quoting the prophet Joel) says to the crowd at Pentecost (Acts 2:17). Most peddlers of “last days” hysteria conveniently overlook this reference to such a time being punctuated by an outpouring of God’s Spirit, enabling sons and daughters to prophesy, young men to see visions, old men to dream dreams. Likewise, they overlook the fact that all Scriptural references to “last days” strongly imply it is a period which had already begun at the time the New Testament was being written. Peter’s sermon is perhaps the most explicit, drawing a direct connection between the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost and the fulfillment of Joel’s “last days” prophecy (although the prophet himself does not use the term in the passage cited by the Apostle).

The implication is clear. The birth of the church is the beginning of the “last days,” a kairos moment in which the eschatological kingdom of God breaks forth into the midst of human history. The fullness of God’s plan for the redemption of the world has been revealed through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. What remains to be completed is the proclamation of this Good News to the ends of the earth. That is the mission of the church, empowered by the Holy Spirit to carry on the work which Christ began.

It is inevitable that a church so empowered to proclaim the Word of God with boldness and perform signs and wonders as evidence of the inbreaking of the kingdom of God will encounter fierce opposition at the hands of the fallen order to whose end the church bears witness. In the face of such opposition, some marginal believers will fall away while others will seek accommodation by watering down the Gospel message. These negative characteristics of the “last days” are often emphasized by contemporary commentators without giving proper attention to the corresponding positive characteristics manifest at Pentecost. As a result, many believers have come to view mounting opposition, decreasing church membership, and proliferation of false teachings as a sign of the church’s waning influence. Resigned to the fact that the church will ultimately fail in its mission, they place their hope in the escapist fantasy that they will soon be snatched out of this miserable world before God completely destroys it.

It is precisely this kind of attitude which robs the church of its power. A spiritually impotent church is not living in the “last days,” no matter how obsessed it may be with events in the Middle East, computer micro chip technology, and the resurgence of ancient pagan religions. The church that is truly living in the “last days” is the church so empowered by the Spirit of God that its very presence in the midst of the fallen world is a threat to that world’s continued existence; a presence so powerful and transforming that the world will do everything in its imaginary power to stave off its inevitable end.