Wesley Corpus

Two points in the sermon call for criticism in view of recent investigations into the eschatological teaching of the New Testament. First, Wesley identifies without discussion the Day of Jehovah of the Old Testament prophets and the Jewish Apocalyptic writers with the Day of our Lord's second coming, the general resurrection, and the last Judgement, of the New Testament documents; and he uses indiscriminately passages from all these sources to give detail and picturesqueness to his picture. Moreover he adopts the most literal interpretation of them all, the only point at which he balks being the length of the Day of Judgement, which he thinks "may not improbably comprise several thousand years;" and the opening of the books, which he says is "a figurative expression." It can hardly be doubted that our Lord's teaching was largely influenced by the Old Testament and Apocalyptic conception, especially in His predictions about the destruction of Jerusalem and the Jewish polity; but He added to it the idea of an individual as well as a national judgement, and extended its scope to the whole world.