A Little Detour - Why It's Important

So why is it important? Why does it matter which interpretation is correct? Why should you try to prove that those who advocate a continuous "last days" are wrong? 1st, it's very important that we take the word of God at face value, that we accept it as reliable and not confusing.

2nd, it's very important to pray and work with the correct goal in mind. If you're still waiting for the something that would replace the old that was vanishing away, then you're off the mark. You're late. You missed the boat. You're thinking Jesus Christ will come back a second time to accomplish what He has already accomplished. Prayer, along with the word of God, is the offensive weaponry of the Church, the Christian. Through prayer anything within God's will can be accomplished. Why would you pray for the victory of God's new covenant and all its promises and reigning of that kingdom over all, if you thought it couldn't happen until later, until Christ's return, until thousands of years from when you live? You'd think you were praying against God's will.

3rd, you would utterly change the author's intended meaning, which is that the greatest transition of all time was happening during the author's life time. It was the transition from the old to the new, from restrictive dispensation of God's grace to expansive dispensation of God's grace, from the exclusiveness of Israel as the center of God's purposes to the saved peoples of the world, from the reign of sinful men to the reign of Christ. Are you still waiting for this transition? No? Then you cannot believe that the "last days" continues forever, or at least till Christ returns. Without an ending of these last days, there can be no beginning of the new day. And you would be living still in the old day, the old covenant. And the author would be making a point that was no point at all at best, and something that was a fraud, a deception, at worst.

The author used the word "last" to demonstrate something was ending, and the interpretation that says it's still ending 2 thousand years later asserts no ending at all. And by implication denies the change from the old to the new. 4th, the interpretation that denies the ending occurred in the author's life time denies the change from the old to the new, the victory of Christ, the reign of Christ, and the expansion of the gospel to the entire world. There had to be an end before there could be a new beginning.