The Future of Jesus Part 2

Few to be saved throughout (future) human history? --by Mark Horne

http://www.hornes.org/mark/2009/11/06/the-future-of-jesus-2-few-to-be-saved-throughout-future-human-history/

Someone asked why more people don’t see the plain and straightforward claims of the Bible about the future. I doubt I have much more to add to what I have already presented. As far as I can tell it is rarely even admitted that these passages exist. Instead, other passages are used to claim a different teaching.

The rest of my posts on this subject will probably be devoted to removing such obstructions. (In this case, I’m mostly re-using a post from October 16, 2006).

One such passage comes from Luke 13 and is used to support the proposition that only a few will be saved in human history. This is what the text says:

He went on his way through towns and villages, teaching and journeying toward Jerusalem. And someone said to him, “Lord, will those who are saved be few?” And he said to them, “Strive to enter through the narrow door. For many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able. When once the master of the house has risen and shut the door, and you begin to stand outside and to knock at the door, saying, ‘Lord, open to us,’ then he will answer you, ‘I do not know where you come from.’ Then you will begin to say, ‘We ate and drank in your presence, and you taught in our streets.’ But he will say, ‘I tell you, I do not know where you come from. Depart from me, all you workers of evil!’ In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God but you yourselves cast out. And people will come from east and west, and from north and south, and recline at table in the kingdom of God. And behold, some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last” (Luke 13.22-29)

This is what the text does not say:

He went on his way through towns and villages, teaching and journeying toward Jerusalem. And someone said to him, “Lord, will those who are saved be few?” And he said to them, “Strive to enter through the narrow door. For many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able. When once the master of the house has risen and shut the door, and you begin to stand outside and to knock at the door, saying, ‘Lord, open to us,’ then he will answer you, ‘I do not know where you come from.’ Then you will begin to say, ‘We ate and drank in your presence, and you taught in our streets.’ But he will say, ‘I tell you, I do not know where you come from. Depart from me, all you workers of evil!’ In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God but you yourselves cast out. And a really small number of people will come from east and west, and from north and south, and recline at table in the kingdom of God.”

Jesus doesn’t say only a few will be saved; he says only a few of his countrymen will be saved. And even here he is only referring to his own generation. He is talking about those who owned the streets on which he preached.

So there is nothing in this passage to make us pessimistic about the future or impute to God a stingy plan for the human race as a whole. In fact, Jesus rhetoric of all those gathering from all compass points indicates the very opposite: that most people will be eventually brought into salvation.

That doesn’t mean I think Luke 13.29 is some sort of absolute proof for “postmillennialism.” No, as I have already written, I give that honor to Isaiah 49.1-7:

Listen to me, O coastlands,
and give attention, you peoples from afar.
The Lord called me from the womb,
from the body of my mother he named my name.
He made my mouth like a sharp sword;
in the shadow of his hand he hid me;
he made me a polished arrow;
in his quiver he hid me away.
And he said to me, “You are my servant,
Israel, in whom I will be glorified.” [1]
But I said, “I have labored in vain;
I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity;
yet surely my right is with the Lord,
and my recompense with my God.”

And now the Lord says,
he who formed me from the womb to be his servant,
to bring Jacob back to him;
and that Israel might be gathered to him—
for I am honored in the eyes of the Lord,
and my God has become my strength—
he says:
“It is too light a thing that you should be my servant
to raise up the tribes of Jacob
and to bring back the preserved of Israel;
I will make you as a light for the nations,
that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.”

Thus says the Lord,
the Redeemer of Israel and his Holy One,
to one deeply despised, abhorred by the nation,
the servant of rulers:
“Kings shall see and arise;
princes, and they shall prostrate themselves;
because of the Lord, who is faithful,
the Holy One of Israel, who has chosen you.”

It is too small a thing to God for him to show mercy on and bring salvation to a minority of humanity.

So there is no excuse for us to be stingy about the Great Commission.