Perhaps we could begin to define the Day of the Lord by explaining what it isn’t (or what it wasn’t)! The Day of the Lord wasn’t May 21, 2011, on which date the Day of the Lord was predicted to occur by Harold Camping.[1] Neither did it occur in the 1980s, as was suggested by Hal Lindsey in his The Late Great Planet Earth. Modern evangelical premillennialists have believed that Israel becoming a nation in 1948 was a major indicator pointing to the Second Coming of Christ.[2] The problem with such an idea is that unbelievers, atheists and agnostics (such as the Zionists who fought in 1948 to create the nation of Israel) were never chosen by God to represent him in anything. Why should Christians believe the Jews of 1948 are any different? There was no savior in 1948 like Moses, neither was there a Zerubbabel, a Nehemiah or an Ezra to turn the Jews to the Lord. The Jews living in the Middle East are now as they were in 1948 unbelievers, atheists and agnostics. Translation? The modern nation of Israel is a march to nowhere, as far as the Second Coming of Christ is concerned.[3]
So, why wouldn’t Paul believe there was a need for him to write anything about the times and the seasons (1Thessalonians 5:1), which he interprets in verse-2 as the Day of the Lord? It certainly couldn’t be because ‘knowing the day’ wasn’t important, nor could it be because more couldn’t be said about it, if the date could be known. It was because the coming of that day was a fluid matter. If the Jewish nation would repent or perhaps even not pursue believers in an effort to persecute them, the time of the Lord’s judgment could be delayed. How could Paul say the Day of the Lord would occur within a year or two, or in a decade or two (assuming his letters to the Thessalonians were written cir. 51 AD)? The only certainty about its timeframe was Jesus claimed there were some listening to him, who wouldn’t taste death, until he would return in his Kingdom (Matthew 16:27-28), and that means all would be fulfilled sometime within that generation of believers (Matthew 23:34-36). Jesus told his disciples that it wasn’t for them to know or understand the times and the seasons that were yet in the hand of the Father (Acts 1:6-7). Only those things that have been revealed was for our understanding (Deuteronomy 29:29).
The Day of the Lord is a day of judgment. While the New Covenant speaks of a specific Day of the Lord, there have been many days referred to as the Day of the Lord. For example, Isaiah 2:12 concerned ancient Judah and Jerusalem (Isaiah 2:1); Isaiah 13:6, 9 concerned Babylon (Isaiah 13:1, 19); Isaiah 34:8 concerned all nations (Isaiah 34:2, but especially Idumea (Isaiah 34:5); Obadiah 1:15 concerned Edom (Obadiah 1:1). While a case can and should be made for type and antitype, the fact remains that there were many days called the Day of the Lord. They all had one thing in common, namely, that the Lord intervened in human affairs and visited that nation in judgment. He came in the person of a stronger nation that would defeat and destroy the nation or nations under judgment. Moreover, earthquakes, famines and other natural disasters might accompany the war that the Lord waged to judge the evil done by the people in question. In the context of the New Covenant, its writers believed that day would come in the first century AD (Matthew 16:27-28; 23:34-36; 24:34; Luke 21:20-27, 32; Romans 13:11-12; Hebrews 1:1-2; 1Peter 1:10-12, 20; 1John 2:18).
Paul reminded the believers at Thessalonica that the Day of the Lord was to come as a thief in the night. Whoever knew when he was going to be robbed? A successful robbery (assuming a non-violent occurrence) is contingent upon the ignorance of the victim. So, too, the Day of the Lord would come upon the world as a thief in the night (1Thessalonians 5:2; Matthew 24:36, 42-44). Unbelievers would be aware of its coming, and they would falsely interpret its signs as something good for the nation (1Thessalonians 5:3; cp. Revelation 11:7-13, 15). Only believers would be able to detect its signs, as they occurred, and interpret them correctly, showing the Day of the Lord wouldn’t come upon them as a thief (1Thessalonians 5:4).
_______________________________________________________
[1] Harold Camping (1921-2013) was an American Christian radio broadcaster, author and evangelist. Beginning in 1958, he served as president of Family Radio, a California-based radio station group, that broadcasts to more than 150 markets in the United States.
[2] Hal Lindsey claims this event “End-time signs revolve around Israel, but until 1948, there was no Israel. God bringing that ancient nation back to life — vividly predicted over and over in scripture — gives meaning and urgency to all the other signs.”
[3] Predictions for the Second Coming of Christ is an evil tree that cannot bear good fruit. If the Second Coming had already occurred as the writers of the New Covenant Scriptures predicted it would, then all future predictions **must** be false, and their authors are false prophets.
Smoodock's Blog 