The Significance of The Last Things

First things first! If we are to explore the theme that eschatology matters, then we need to define the term. Eschatology comes from the Greek word “eschatos”, meaning, last things; and the ending “logos”,” means “the study of”. The combination of these words gives us a definition: “the study of last things.” This is significant for helping answer the question, “How does eschatology matter?” If it is the study of last things, and not just what happens at the end of the world, then the implications and applications are as deep as the deepest lake or as high as the highest mountain and as wide as the widest ocean. What if those last things can be shown to have been inaugurated? One very important presupposition as we consider these things is that scripture is the inspired, infallible, inerrant word of God and therefore will be the basis for all discussions of eschatology.

One of the “last things” that we find in the Scriptures is the “Last Supper” (Matthew 26:17-30; I Corinthians 11:17-33). In Matthew, Jesus inaugurated the New Covenant meal during the feast of Passover. Passover was already instituted for the nation of Israel (corporate Adam) to celebrate and remember how on that fatal night God’s destroyer “passed over” the dwellings of the people who smeared the blood of the Lamb on the door post, sparing the first born of that family (Exodus 12).

During the first “Last” Supper, Jesus said that the wine is His blood, the bread is His body (Matthew 26:26-29). He is the Passover Lamb (John 1:36). God in the New Covenant would not spare His own son (Romans 8:32), though He spared the human first sons of Israel covered by the blood (grace). While the firstborn deserved death, it was the grace of God to provide life. However, sinful humanity takes what God gives as a means of His grace (Lord’s Supper) and often perverts and reduces the significance of it. This is why Paul exhorted and rebuked the church in Corinth (and, by extension, anywhere else) who perverted and reduced the means of the Lord’s grace. They took the Lord’s Supper and some were going hungry, others had nothing. This may be why most churches today do not celebrate a meal (supper). Some were so careless with celebrating the meal, the judgment of God visited among them, and some died (1 Corinthians 11:30). 

However, this should not keep Christ’s Church from celebrating and worshiping the Lamb of God. Jesus, as the Lamb of God, has taken our sins and offered Himself as the perfect cleansing sacrifice (Hebrews 9:14). Having accomplished this great sacrifice Christ has appeased the Destroyer’s wrath. The ultimate Last Supper will be when Christ returns at the eschaton (Rev 19:9). That will be a feast in which all who have been covered by the Lamb’s blood will be partake (Matthew 22:1-14).