Children, it is the last hour

It is sometimes imagined that the Resurrection of Christ finds its full significance as the last happy chapter in the story of His life, so that after a gruelling chapter about His betrayal, arrest, crucifixion, and burial, the tale can end with the Evangelist concluding, “And He lived happily ever after”.  Consistent with this is a theological view which finds the sole significance of His Resurrection as proof that the price Jesus paid for our sin on the cross was accepted by the Father—that is, the Father indicated that the price Jesus paid by dying for our sins was fully sufficient.  In this view, the Resurrection of Christ had no salvific value such as did His Passion.

This perhaps accounts for the Evangelical devotional focus solely upon the cross:  “On a hill, far away, stood an old rugged cross. the emblem of suffering and shame, and I love that old cross where the dearest and best for a world of lost sinners was slain.”  The writer of this wonderful hymn breathed not a word about loving the empty tomb, though he undoubtedly believed the tomb was empty.  I remember having lunch with one such western theologian (a man of piety and holiness) who opined over our meal that the cross was “where it was at” and that the Resurrection was “the icing on the cake”.  He was a dear friend and I did not want to offend him (he was also paying for the meal), and so I merely replied how odd it was that the line between the east and the west would run right down the middle of that restaurant.

One could write about the saving power of the Resurrection in which death swallowed up and immortal life is given to the world.  But here I would like to take a step back and see how the Resurrection of Christ functions not so much as the end of Christ’s story, but the beginning of the story of the age to come.

For it is important to realize that the Resurrection of Christ was not like the resurrection of Jairus’ daughter, or of the son of the widow of Nain, or in fact like any of those people raised from the dead in Christ’s ministry.  They were raised from death back to the life they had before they died.  This was even true in the case of Lazarus, though his resurrection involved not merely the return of his spirit to his body (as in the cases of those raised from the dead shortly after they had died), but the actual reversal of the powers of corruption.  Unlike Jairus’ daughter who was raised to life a few minutes after she had died, Lazarus had been dead four days, and so of course had begun to rot.  His resurrection therefore included the forces of decomposition working backwards, so that his decomposed flesh was healed and restored.  As Lazarus emerged from the tomb, the life that had been restored to him was exactly like the biological life he enjoyed before his death.  He was still subject to weakness, sickness, disease, and mortality, and would later die again—this time, permanently.

It was otherwise with the Resurrection of Christ. Christ was raised to the immortal life that all would one day enjoy in the age to come.  When Jesus emerged from His tomb, He was no longer subject to weakness, sickness, disease, or mortality.  “Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again; death no longer is master over Him” (Romans 6:9).  Though He was still tangible, physical, and flesh and blood (see Luke 24:36-39 and an article here), He was no longer subject to the physical limitations of age—including, apparently, limitations of time and space, since He could vanish at will and appear in a locked room without opening or breaking down the door (Luke 24:31, John 20:19).

The expectation among most Second Temple Jews was that at the end of this age the Messiah would come and that all the dead would be raised (see for example 2 Esdras 7:25f).  As the apostles reflected on the significance of the Resurrection of Jesus, it became clear to them that the final resurrection of all had now begun.  Jesus’ resurrection was not simply the end of His personal story, but the first movement in the renewal and resurrection of the whole world.  That is what St. Paul meant when he wrote, “As in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.  But each in his own order:  Christ the first fruits, then at His Coming those who belong to Christ.  Then comes the end, when He delivers the Kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power.” (1 Corinthians 15:22-24).

Paul could hardly have been clearer:  the final resurrection, long expected by Jews to come with the Messiah’s victory, had begun.  Christ Himself was the first to be raised, and those who belonged to Him would be raised at His Second Coming, the time when He would finally abolish all other authority than His own (including the rule of death) and deliver this Kingdom to the Father.  Given that Jesus’ Resurrection was unlike the resurrections of all the others (e.g. Lazarus and Jairus’ daughter), but rather was an event that brought the powers of the age to come into this age, no other conclusion was possible.  It was not therefore the case that Jesus was raised and that the final resurrection would have to wait until later.  Rather, that final resurrection had already begun.

This accounts for the eschatological emphasis found throughout the New Testament about how we are now living in the last days.  Such references abound, and are too numerous to list within a blog post.  But we may mention a few of them.

From St. Paul:  “Salvation is nearer to us than when we first believed; the night is far gone, the day is at hand” (Romans 13:11-12).  From St. James:  “Behold, the Judge is standing at the doors!” (James 5:9).  From St. Peter:  “The end of all things is at hand; therefore keep sane and sober for your prayers” (1 Peter 4:7).  From St. Jude:  “You must remember, beloved, the predictions of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ; they said to you, “In the last time there will be scoffers.”  And from St. John:  “Children, it is the last hour” (1 John 2:18).  And from the Lord Himself, at the end of the Book of Revelation:  “Behold, I am coming soon, bringing My recompense to repay every one for what he has done” (Revelation 22:12).

This emphatic recognition of living in the last time, the final days of world history, was not rooted in considerations of calendar, but in the conviction that the final resurrection had already begun.  That is why St. Paul could write almost in passing that the end of the ages had come upon them (see 1 Corinthians 10:11). The apostles were not affirming (as many writers have said) that they were expecting the Second Coming within their lifetime.  As N.T. Wright pointed out in his writings on Paul, if the early church really expected the Second Coming to occur soon, it is odd that the disappointment left no mark in the writings of the second century.  Surely such an experience of  collective trauma of disappointment should have left some evidence somewhere?  But such evidence is entirely lacking, and the writers of the second century lived and wrote with the same untroubled confidence as those in the first century, as if everything was going according to divine plan as they expected.  The extant literature shows no evidence that such an important expectation had been disappointed or the Second Coming unaccountably delayed.

This shows that the New Testament texts were not saying that the Second Coming was expected within a matter of decades, but that with Jesus, human history had reached its goal.  All history after that no longer had any teleological value, no further telos or goal, no further significance in the plans of God.  It was like the rumbling of a car engine after one turns the engine off:  sometimes the engine grumbles and rumbles on for a bit before it finally sputters and dies.

That is what history has been doing since the Resurrection of Christ—rumbling, sputtering, and turning over and over like the car engine, but about to decisively die.  Historical events now serve little ultimate purpose apart from the proclamation of the Gospel.  With Christ, history has already reached its goal.

What does this all mean for us?  Two things.

First of all it means that our life in Christ consists of waiting, which is why St. Paul characterized a Christian as someone who had turned to God from the idols to serve a living and true God and to wait for His Son from heaven (1 Thessalonians 1:9-10).

This theme of Christian life as waiting for the End is suffused throughout the New Testament.  Thus Paul spoke to the Corinthians of exercising their spiritual gifts “as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 1:7).   He said that while suffering in this age, we “wait for our final adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies” (Romans 8:23).  He said that while we live as citizens of heaven, “we wait for our Saviour” who will come from heaven to transform our bodies (Philippians 3:20).

Obviously this is not an idle waiting, as if we were to do nothing at all except hang around and be lazy and read the Left Behind novels.  As one Orthodox prayer says, we want to be found “not idle or sleeping, but watchful and actively performing Your commandments”.  This performance of commandments includes things like feeding the poor, helping the world, being good citizens, and a thousand other duties and good things.  But as we do these things, we keep at least one eye on the horizon, “awaiting our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ” (Titus 2:13).  As one Christian wag said, we are not looking for the undertaker, but for the upper-taker.  This cry of longing for the return of Christ and consummation of the final resurrection found its way into the Didache, an early Christian handbook of sorts.  It contains a brief prayer that has never left the heart of the Church:  “Let grace come, and let the world pass away!”

Secondly this means that we must live in such a way as to be ready for end.  Again, the apostles were emphatic about this.  Paul wrote that because the night was far gone and the day was at hand, Christians must “lay aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armour of light, behaving properly as in the day, not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual promiscuity and sensuality, not in strife and jealousy.”  Rather they must “put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh in regard to its lusts” (Romans 13:112-14).  Peter wrote the same:  because we have the promise of a new heaven and a new earth in which righteousness dwells and finally finds a home, we must “be diligent to be found by Him in peace, spotless and blameless” (2 Peter 3:13-14).

Though we yet live a dark world, shrouded in the night, we must behave as if the day were already here, living as “sons of light and sons of the day (1 Thessalonians 5:4f).  We live in the interim between the Resurrection of Christ and the resurrection of everyone else, and are therefore an eschatological people at our core.  We live in the last hour, and in expectation of the appearing of Christ.

In a classic western catechism, “the last things” are reduced to our fates as individuals, consisting of “death, judgment, heaven, and hell”.  This is a tragic and dispirited reduction of the New Testament’s cosmic eschatological vision.  We do not just look for our individual reward in heaven.  It is even better than that:  we look for an entire renewed cosmos, in which righteousness finally dwells.  In our hearts the cry of Maranatha!—our Lord, come!—continually sounds.  Children, it is the last hour.