The eschatological-legal religion is graceless and driven by a shared vision of the future, one that is attained by obedience to the new and ever-morphing law of social justice.
I recall reading that at least some of the ancient rabbis believed that if every Israelite obeyed the law at the same time, for just a moment, the Messiah would come. If so, that’s a religion of eschatology and law.
Christianity has eschatology and law but it is not fundamentally an legal-eschatological religion, i.e., attainment of the eschaton (the future blessed state on earth) through law-keeping. It is a religion of salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.
In Christianity, the law first teaches us our sin and need for a Savior. Grace saves us, by granting us new life and true faith in Christ, and then grace sanctifies us, leading us to greater conformity to the law—not for salvation but because of it.
Christianity has an eschatology, a vision of the future but it is not a future that we bring. It is a future that entered history in Christ, when he announced the advent of the Kingdom of God (Mark 1). It is not a future brought about by political, cultural, or military action.
It was because Jesus failed to bring in the eschaton that he frustrated Judas et al and because he didn’t preach a legal religion that he frustrated the Pharisees. He disappointed all of them because he came to save sinners from the wrath to come.
He came to make sinners into citizens of the eschatological-heavenly kingdom by grace alone, through faith alone. Christians will always frustrate the echatological-legal crowd because Christians have a twofold citizenship.
The eschaton will come when Christ comes. Until then, Christians are to live quiet and peaceable lives, fulfilling their vocation (whatever it is) before the face of God (coram Deo), to his glory alone (Soli Deo Gloria). We live a Hebrews 11 existence
The legal-eschatological religion wants Ex 20 or Rev 20 and they want it now and they want you to do your part to bring it about. You will never satisfy their demands bec their goal is not to benefit you but to use you to get to the eschaton.
The law does not become any less law because it’s wielded by a eschatologically-driven warrior for “social justice” and the warrior can’t hear the law as it really is.
The eschatological-legal warrior thinks he’s fit to touch the holy mountain, because he’s righteous. In his mind, he’s met the terms of the law. I saw this in my first encounter with theonomists through the 80s.
They didn’t think of the law as something that mastered them, which teaches them the greatness of their sin and misery. They saw the law as something they had mastered, a tool to reach their golden-age eschatology. It too is a legal-eschatological religion.
The whole fundamentalist “Left Behind” chiliasm is another version of the legal-eschatological vision. Jesus gets tacked on but it’s not a system driven by the incarnation and the cross as much as facilitated by it.
Christianity is incompatible with this religion. Attempts to synthesize it with Christianity must fail. Christianity is for sinners, those who cannot satisfy justice, who are muddling through the world between the 1st advent & the 2nd.
