Eschatology did not arise when people began to doubt the actuality of God’s kingship in the cult, but when they had to learn in the greatest distress to rely, in faith alone, on God as the only firm basis of life and when this realism of faith was directed critically against the life of the people so that the coming catastrophe was looked upon as a divine intervention full of justice and also so that it was confessed that the Holy God remained unshakable in His fidelity and love to Israel. Thus the life of Israel in history came to have a double aspect: on the one hand judgment was looked upon as near at hand and the re-creation of the community of God as approaching.… Eschatology is a religious certainty which springs directly from the Israelite faith in God as rooted in the history of its salvation.
The Bible and the Future
Eschatology did not arise when people began to doubt the actuality of God’s kingship in the cult, but when they had to learn in the greatest distress to rely, in faith alone, on God as the only firm basis of life and when this realism of faith was directed critically against the life of the people so that the coming catastrophe was looked upon as a divine intervention full of justice and also so that it was confessed that the Holy God remained unshakable in His fidelity and love to Israel. Thus the life of Israel in history came to have a double aspect: on the one hand judgment was looked upon as near at hand and the re-creation of the community of God as approaching.… Eschatology is a religious certainty which springs directly from the Israelite faith in God as rooted in the history of its salvation.
The Bible and the Future