What the "Left Behind" Series Left Behind

Probably the most amazing phenomena of recent Christian publishing history has been the remarkable success of Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins’ Left Behind book series. These novels have been outselling all other Christian literature, with the possible exception of the Bible itself.

It isn’t all that difficult to understand the popularity of this series. We live in uncertain times, a time of rapid change and considerable chaos. The Left Behind novels tap into the curiosity that many have about what the future holds, and what forces are controlling the course of world events. They present an apocalyptic worldview that many Christians have been indoctrinated in due to the influence of what is known as “dispensationalism.” Thirty years ago it was Hal Lindsey with his book, The Late Great Planet Earth, brought dispensational theology with its view of the events surrounding the Second Coming, to the top of The New York Times bestsellers list.

A very central feature of dispensational theology is the belief that Christians will be raptured (“Beamed up” for you Star Trek fans) to heaven, while the earth will undergo seven years of tremendous conflict and turmoil (known as “The Great Tribulation”). Following this time of tribulation Jesus will return. This scheme of Biblical interpretation is relatively new. It first emerged on the scene in the 1830’s, but did not experience wide acceptance until the early 1900’s with the spread of the Scofield Bible. This was not the view of the early Church fathers, it was not the view of the Protestant Reformers, nor was it the view of the Puritans. It was not the view of John Wesley, Jonathan Edwards, Charles Finney, or Charles Spurgeon (just to name a few). But it is the view of Tim LaHaye, who is advancing it through the fictional Left Behind novels.

The Left Behind series borrows its title from passages like Luke 17:35, in which makes a prophetic statement about two women grinding meal at a mill. Jesus states that on the day that the “Son of Man is revealed” (Luke 17:30), one woman will be taken and the other left behind. A first-century audience would have understood this to mean one will be taken away in judgment, while the other will escape judgment by remaining where she is. This is clear from the context, which is about a coming judgment—a judgment that, in Jewish literature, everyone is expected to face. This is very different from saying one will be raptured and the other judged.

Of course, those who hold to this dispensational/Left Behind theology claim to base their thinking on the book of the Revelation, and other apocalyptic portions of both the Old and New Testaments. But I would argue that they have failed to take several things into account, in other words they have left some things behind.

For instance, they have left behind the historical context in which these books were written. It ignores the audience to whom these books were initially intended. This by no means negates their significance for future generations, but the intended audience was first of all, believers living in the first century. They understood it as written to them, addressing issues and situations they were facing. The idea that John, the author of Revelation, intended his message to be understood only by a late 20th or 21st century Western Christian audience is both arrogant and ignorant. It flies in the face of what John writes himself in Revelation 2-3. John states quite clearly that his intended audience is to be Christians living in Asia Minor in the first century. To ignore this is a hermeneutical injustice.

Take note of John’s words in the very first verse of the book of the Revelation. He writes: “The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave to show to His bond-servants, the things which must soon take place . . .” (Rev.1:1). The Revelation, therefore, is primarily concerned with the events that were in the near future for John and his initial readers. It must be stressed that the phrase “soon take place ” (KJV says “shortly take place ”) is the Greek word “tachos” (used in Luke 18:8; Acts 12:7, 22:18, 25:4; Rom. 16:20; Rev.22:6), which would not have been understood by a first century reader to mean anything but soon. The common futurist interpretation of Revelation is refuted in the very first verse.

In Revelation 1:3, to further amplify the issue of the nearness of time, we have John’s use of the phrase “for the time is near” (Greek word – eggus). This word is at times translated as “at hand” (John 2:13, 6:4, 7:2, 11:55). John is emphasizing to his first century audience the need to heed and obey the instructions of this book because the crisis was upon them.

The Left Behind novels, though they are not written as theology, represent a particular theological perspective. This perspective ignores the original historical context and distorts the book of the Revelation in to a cryptical message that could only be understood by a generation that was 1,900 years in the future after its writing. The idea, for example, that the book of Revelation has coded references to people, places, and events that where hundreds of years in the future (Saddam Hussein, Iraq, the Gulf War, Afghanistan, Osama bin Laden) would have made no sense at all to the original audience to whom it was written. All that this dispensationalist perspective proves is the old adage that “a text taken out of context can be a pretext for anything.” (Why are these dispensationalist interpreters always shown to be wrong in their predictions, yet there is never any public repentance for their “false prophecies”?)

One of the primary rules in interpreting the Scriptures, including the book of the Revelation, is “What it meant to the original audience is still what it means today.” It was God’s revelation to them first. It is our job to do the best we can to read such words in their original historical and theological context.

Originally written in 2002