If the early Church believed they were living at the end of the worlds or age 1 Corinthians 10:11 when and how did the train derailed off the track?
Why has no record of the past Second Advent come down to us in history ? We have to first remember that very remarkable and significant events occurred in early church history apparently leaving us uncertain as to the fate of other prominent Jewish Christian workers.
Therefore the belief in the failure of Christ’s prophecies stem from the attempts of a Gentile-dominated church after A.D. 70 trying to understand Jewish concepts. This lack of understanding should not amaze us, for most of the Jewish world misunderstood the prophecies of His first coming, so why should we expect any difference in recognition of His second coming and the end of the age by Gentile interpreters?
The silence of the period after the destruction was a direct result of the downfall and captivity of the Jewish Nation. Along with its end the Jewish Christians were scattered and became almost lost to history. If any literature was written by them after the fall of Jerusalem that taught the return of Christ in that event, there is good reason to believe that it was suppressed or beyond the understanding of the dominant Gentile church.
"Jumping the gun" the Gentile-dominated church was caught up in the idea of a physical return and a literal interpretation of the very figurative Jewish apocalyptic language found in the book of Revelation and other OT & NT prophecies.
And any careful study of Rabbinic sources shows that the remnant of the Jewish nation actively destroyed all apocalyptic works speaking of an imminent end after A.D. 70 because of its embarrassment to them.
Only after the end of the age happened, did the dominant Gentile church "miss" the timing and the nature of the event. Here are some statements made from a will know early church father named Kurt Aland who tell us of the decisive turning point in the second half of the second century a watershed decisive for the development of the Christian church. This is the turning point when the train derailed off the track.
We discover a decisive turning point in the second half of the second century a watershed decisive for the development of the Christian church. It was the definite conviction not only of Paul, but of all Christians of that time, that they themselves would experience the return of the Lord;
The Apocalypse expresses the fervent waiting for the end withing the circles in which the writer lived-not an expectation that will happen at some unknown point x in time, but one in the immediate present. If we browse through the writings of that period we observe that this expectation of the end continued. In fact, we also find ti the writing of the first half of the second century sufficient evidence to indicate that the expectation of the Parousia was by no means at an end then.
At the end of the Didache ("the teaching of the twelve apostles"), from the time shortly after 100, there is, for example, an apocalyptic chapter which corresponds completely in its outline to the Synoptic apocalypse in Mark 13 (and the parallel chapters in the other Synoptic Gospels.); here we can only very cautiously say that it used the same words, but that its content is imperceptibly in the process of change. It quite similar to the Epistle of Barnabas which was written a little later that the Didache, where we read: (The day is near in which everything will perish together with the evil. The Lord ans his recompense are near).
Again and again the old expressions echo. They echo apparently almost unchanged, but ("doubt about the imminence of the Lord’s return is increasingly mixed with them until around the middle of the second century when the Shepherd of Hermas thinks he has found a solution and expresses it with great thoroughness and emphaisi: the Parousia-the Lord’s return-has been postponed for the sake of Christians them selves. The building of the tower has not been stopped,) it is only temporarily suspended. Therefore and this is the warning of the Shepherd of Hermas, on account of which the entire work was really written do good works for your purification, for if you delay too long, the construction of the tower may be finished and you will not be included as stones built into it.
The thought of a postponement of the Parousia appears all through 2 Clement but here it is expressly mentioned for the first time. Thus, about the middle of the second century, a decisive turning point occurs one which can be compared in significance to all other great turning points, including the Reformation. Obviously, we cannot fix this turning point precisely at the year 150, for it took a while until the though caught hold everywhere. But a development does begin with the Shepherd of Hermas which could not be stopped-a development at the end of which we stand today. As soon as the thought of a postponement of the Parousia was uttered once and indeed not only incidentally, but thoroughly presented in an entire writing-it developed its (own life and power).
At first, people looked at it as only a brief postponement, as the Shepherd of Hermas clearly expresses. But soon, as the end of the world did not occur, it was conceived of as a longer and longer period, until finally-this is today’s situation nothing but the thought of a postponement exists in people’s consciousness. (Kurt Aland. A History of Christianity. (2 vols.) Fortress Press: 1985. Vol. 1,pp.89-102
These are powerful statements from someone who knows a turning point when he see them. The Early Church Fathers know that it was a definite conviction not only of Paul, but of all Christians of that time, that they themselves would experience the return of the Lord. And yet they still developed a postponement of the Parousia that developed its own life and power. Ultimately it is time to get back to the scri pture and scri pture alone.
