Closure Missiology - Bad Theology

Jesus is not sitting around, waiting for us to get our act together

Closure missiology is the idea that Jesus cannot return and fulfill our eschatological future until the gospel has been preached to the whole world. This is not a theological concept that you hear people teach on very often but it does drive a lot of messaging from missionary agencies and missionary focused churches. I believe it is a harmful way for us to consider the Great Commission.

This conversation could easily be wrapped up in the debate about end times, dispensationalism versus amillennialism, and so forth. I am not going to address it through these systematic theological frameworks. This is because it doesn't matter what the theology or tradition is of groups using the concept of closure missiology. I see it coming from highly Baptistic groups as well as Reformed movements. Because it gets wrapped up in marketing slogans meant to motivate, there seems to be little filtering theologically.

The concept itself arises from proof-texting Matthew 24:14, which says, “And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.” This verse has fueled the idea that we must “fulfill the Great Commission” so Jesus can return. There are numerous reasons why this is poor theology. Here are a few of the major issues I see, and I am sure commenters can provide others.

1.      Closure missiology focuses on human agency.

Is God dependent on us to usher in his “right to return?” Of course not. Yet, we often talk about the Great Commission in a way that requires action on our part before God can act. This inserts human agency into eschatology.

Jesus is not sitting around, waiting for us to get our act together and fulfill the Great Commission before he can return.

2. It implies that righteous judgment is conditioned on gospel proclamation.

Few people are more pro-missionary than me. Yet, let us not assume that the sending of missionaries is a necessary requirement for God’s judgment to be righteous. Common grace, the idea that all people have been exposed to God’s grace through nature, life experience, and other “normal” means is a part of understanding God’s justice. Romans 1 tells us that all people are subject to God’s judgment independent of special revelation or the sending of missionaries. When we link Christ’s return to a requirement that the gospel must be preached first, in the background lurks the idea that God cannot judge people unless a messenger has already been sent. That is an error. Common grace is that messenger, not the proclamation of the gospel by missionaries. The world is ripe for God’s judgment. No further action is necessary on our part.

3.      The imminent return of Christ was understood in New Testament times to be. well, imminent.

The apostles understood that Jesus’ return was not conditional. They were encouraged to “be ready” because it could happen at any time (Luke 12:40), they spoke about it as being “at hand” (Phil 4:5 and others), and numerous passages which talk about the culmination of eschatology being soon (1 Peter 4:7, 1 John 2:18 and others). The best way for us to understand these passages is to also see the possibility of Jesus’ return as imminent. We should not be conditioning this return on the spread of the Gospel among the unreached.

4.      It leads to triumphalism.

There are no promises in the scripture that tell us that we will “win” in this lifetime. On the contrary, we are promised suffering. When we use the themes of closure missiology and report on success, it gives the sense that we are somehow tipping the scales in favor of the kingdom. We are not. We are invited to participate in what God is doing, and that includes not only the victory stories but also the defeats, however short-term (or long-term) they may be.

5.      It is reductionist.

Reductionism happens when we minimize the requirements for gospel proclamation to meet our own goals. Defining when gospel proclamation is complete is a moving target when it is adjusted along the way. My observation is that the direction of this adjustment is most often to reduce what we mean by fulfillment, and rarely (if ever) to expand or strengthen it qualitatively.

When I was the President of Pioneers Canada we had a fax machine. One day, a fax arrived in our office. The fax had a gospel presentation on it. It also said that “Fax the Gospel” (evidently the name of their organization which I just searched for and could not find on the Internet - this was a long time ago) was fulfilling the Great Commission and ushering in the return of Christ. They were literally faxing this page into all of the political states in the world and thus checking off that box so Jesus could come back. Holy reductionism, batman! (Oh, and by the way, would we consider making a small donation…)

We must be careful about using missiological “lists” of unreached peoples, unengaged peoples, and so on as markers of success. These lists are helpful tools (I personally promote them), but they are filled with human assumptions, sociology, anthropology and human error. When we some ministry claiming to be within striking distance of, for example, “engaging all the unengaged unreached people groups,” we should look for the definitions and limitations to this statement. Lists are helpful tools, primarily for mobilization. They should not be seen as yardsticks of “Great Commission fulfillment.”

What About that Proof Text?

We know that in the final judgment, the nations will be present. Verses like Rev 7:9 and Psalm 22:27 make this clear. But nowhere does Jesus precondition his return on our having fulfilled the Great Commission. Rather, he notes that the gospel will have been proclaimed when the end arrives.  Jesus did not say, “…and then the end CAN come.”  He said, “and then the end WILL come.” That is a big difference. The former means he cannot return until something happens. The latter is describing a sign of the times.

I call using this text (Matt 24:14) to support our efforts to bring Jesus back “proof texting” because it is trying to prove a point by lifting the verse from its context. Jesus is giving a long list of signs that the end is coming. These are signs, not actions that we are to take to bring about the end.

New Thinking Needed

Does this mean that we do not use lists, strategy, and missiology as we conduct our work? Of course not. But let us avoid laboring under a works mentality, though, in which God cannot act until we obey his commands regarding the Great Commission.

Let me suggest a practical reason for moving away from closure missiology. We have a significant mobilization problem among churches and agencies today. Much of the messaging we have been using for the past few decades is related to fulfilling, finishing, or completing a big, challenging task. This is very appealing to Boomers. In fact, they were the ones who came up with most of this messaging. The agencies founded after World War 2 and into the 1980s were formed by Boomers, motivating Boomers and Xers to “solve” the problem of the Great Commission. This contributes to why we have so many “big, hairy, audacious goals” in the missions world.

Younger generations are not so enamored with this language or approach. I am a “Xoomer,” born in the hinge year between the Boomers and Xers. I have ideas, but I am not the one to tell you what motivates the younger generation. They should do that. But I do know that the language we have been using is not working well.

This is an area ripe for innovation.