Messianic Jewish Theology - Eschatology

Eschatology

Issues of creation and eschatology are not central to Messianic Judaism with the following exception: the idea that one age is ending, as the fullness of the gentiles has been reached, and the next age beginning, where we shall see the fullness of Israel. The wording is a reference to Romans 11,

"Again I ask: Did stumble so as to fall beyond recovery? Not at all! Rather, because of their transgression, salvation has come to the Gentiles to make Israel envious. But if their transgression means riches for the world, and their loss means riches for the Gentiles, how much greater riches will their fullness bring! ... For if their rejection is the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead? ... I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers, so that you may not be conceited: Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of the Gentiles has come in. And so all Israel will be saved."

The "fullness of the gentiles" might be said to refer to the Great Commission, which is complete. The rebirth of the nation of Israel, the re-establishment of Jerusalem as its capital, the return of Jews from Russia, "the nation to the north," and the return of Jews worldwide to greater observance are all seen as signs of the beginning of the age of Israel. Messianics believe that when the fullness of Israel is reached, the Messiah will return and the world will see the resurrection of the dead.

The majority of Messianics believe in a literal 7,000-year period for the human history of the world, from Adam to the Judgment, and believe that we are the final generation that will experience the Biblical apocalypse. A small, yet steadily growing, sector of Messianics have adopted forms of Old Earth Creationism which, while denying the theory of evolution, does discount a 6,000- to 7,000-year-old earth, or Theistic Evolution, the belief that God created using evolution or that evolution occurred but that natural selection is an insufficient explanation.

Most Messianics believe that the Messianic Kingdom, or Millennial Sabbath, will literally be for a period of a thousand years, after the collective resurrection of the dead, with Jesus the Messiah ruling from Jerusalem. Many believe that we are living in the final days, or End Times, before the physical return of Jesus to Jerusalem.

Messianics also contend that no serious study of the End Times should ever leave out the significance of God's appointed times, the major Jewish Festivals in the Torah, and their fulfillment as prophetic events as it relates to the person of Jesus and to Israel. Many Messianics believe that just as the Spring Festivals (Passover, First Fruits, Shavuot) were literally fulfilled to the day at Jesus's first coming, the Fall Festivals (Yom Teruah, Yom Kippur, Sukkot) will be literally fulfilled to the day at Jesus's second coming, and that all of the moedim, indeed the entire Torah, intrinsically hint at the Messiah.