We now come to the last post in this series where I am going thorough Kallistos Ware’s book, The Orthodox Way. The short epilogue in his book is entitled, “God as Eternity.” In it, he touches upon the Christian teachings regarding the second coming and the resurrection of the body. So, let’s take a look.
The End Draws Near
Ware begins by reiterating something similar to what the Apostle Paul says in I Corinthians 13. Paul talks about presently “seeing through a glass darkly,” but then “seeing face to face” when Christ returns. The idea being that we already have been given a glimpse of the Kingdom of God and already have a taste of the salvation that will be completed upon the return of Christ, but we do not yet have that full experience of the salvation that will be consummated upon Christ’s return. Given that, Ware articulates it this way: That at present we have a living and personal relationship with God, and that relationship contains within itself seeds of eternity.
That being said, whenever we talk of that future consummation, Ware stresses that we should always speak with caution (and thus decidedly not like many of the “End Times” preachers who claim to have every last detail figured out!). Nevertheless, Ware says that there are three things that Christian teaching is clear on. First, there is the teaching of the Second Coming. On this point, though, Ware states a few things that sound strangely similar to some of the things I was taught as an Evangelical kid. He says that there will be a time in history that will mark the rise of the Antichrist, a time of tribulation for Christians (though he doesn’t claim it to be seven years), followed by the Second Coming of Christ, when he will destroy both the Antichrist and Satan himself. Ware then says that the time of the Second Coming is hidden from us, but it is always imminent, and always spiritually close at hand.
To be honest, I’m not so sure I agree with Ware on this point. Now, the Bible and Church Tradition do clearly teach about the Second Coming, but I am convinced that the talk in I/II Thessalonians (about tribulation and the Antichrist), the Olivet Discourse in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and the book of Revelation itself all is addressing first century concerns. Namely, I am inclined to think that part of the Gospel message of the first-generation church was that Jerusalem was going to be destroyed and suffer God’s wrath because it had rejected Jesus as the Messiah. This is precisely what Jesus prophesied about in the Olivet Discourse (Matthew 24, Mark 13, Luke 21). All of that apocalyptic imagery in the Olivet Discourse (and numerous passages in Paul), I believe, point to the events of AD 66-70 and the Jewish War, when Jerusalem, was, in fact, destroyed. Even the early Church historian Eusebius, writing in the early 4th century, says that Christians viewed the destruction of Jerusalem as the fulfillment of Jesus’ prophecy in the Olivet Discourse.
Now, that does lead to a seeming problem when talking about the Second Coming. I think it is a problem of human language and our limited human perspective trying to describe that which we do not yet fully understand. As I said in the earlier posts, I think it relates to how we even understand the concept of time and history against the backdrop of eternity. Eternity isn’t a point in time in the future—it is the ever-present now. Thus, the incarnation is when eternity, in the person of Christ, invaded history in order to transform God’s creatures into sons like Christ. Therefore, is the Second Coming a point of time at the end of history, or does it signify that point when our creatureliness is fully transformed into sonship, when we “step up” out of this “shoebox” of history and into the new Heaven and Earth which is already present in eternity?
Make no mistake—both the Bible and Christian teaching speak of (from our perspective) a future Second Coming. I’m just not so sure it speaks of it the terms we are too accepting of, namely a bit too much sounding like Hal Lindsey and Tim LaHaye.
The Future Springtime
The second thing Ware says Christian teaching is clear about is that of the Resurrection of the Body. We will all die— our soul will be separated from our body, and our body will go into the ground. The Christian teaching, though, is that at the Second Coming of Christ, our bodies will be resurrected, just like Jesus’ body was resurrected on Easter Sunday, and our souls will be reunited with our bodies. At that point will be the Last Judgment, with Christ as the judge, when “all our acts of choice stand revealed to us in their full implications, when we realize with absolute clarity who we are and what has been the deep meaning and aim of our life” (135).
At the future resurrection, our resurrection bodies will be “freed from the grossness of the fallen flesh” and will “share in the qualities of Christ’s human body at the Transfiguration and after the Resurrection” (136). What that means isn’t that we will leave our flesh behind, but rather it will be transformed into immortal flesh, like that of Christ’s. As Ware states, “Man is not saved from his body, but in it; not saved from the material world but with it. Because man is a microcosm and mediator of the creation, his own salvation involves also the reconciliation and transfiguration of the whole animate and inanimate creation around him” (136).
Simply put, the teaching of the Resurrection of the Body is the teaching of the redemption and transfiguration of the entire created order. Creation, from the very beginning, was declared to be “very good.” At the Second Coming, creation, though initially corruptible, will be transformed into incorruptibility. The material will be taken up into the eternal. Obviously, we, on this side of eternity, have no way of truly comprehending that, but the resurrection of Christ on Easter morning back in AD 30 is the evidence of that future resurrection, where we will become as he is.
Related to that is the question regarding hell, and what will happen to those who don’t belong to Christ at the Last Judgment. I’ve written two posts on the topic of hell here and here. I invite you to read them.
A Journey into the Infinite
The final thing Ware talks about is the kingdom without end. Once again, it involves the idea of eternity invading history. Actually, that’s not quite true, for as Ware states, “Its eternity and infinity are beyond the scope of our fallen imagination” (137). As long as we think of “eternity” in terms of “an infinite amount of time,” I don’t think we fully understand it—indeed, on this side of eternity, we can’t. Perhaps we should think of it in this way: At the Second Coming and the Resurrection of the Dead, this corruptible natural creation—along with our limited concept of “time” and “history”—will be taken up and transformed into an incorruptible (i.e. supernatural) natural creation, and with that, we will experience a “higher quality” of “time” and “history.”
In any case, Ware emphasizes there are two things about this Kingdom without End about which we can be sure. First, the perfection we will experience will not be uniform, but diversified. Simply put, there will be an infinite about of variety in the Kingdom: “In God’s Kingdom, each is one with all the others, yet each is distinctively himself, bearing the same delineaments as he did in this life, yet with these characteristics healed, renewed and glorified” (137).
Secondly, the perfection we will experience will not be static, but dynamic and one of unending progress. This goes back to the Orthodox teaching regarding Genesis 1-3, where human beings are made “in God’s image” with the purpose of “bearing God’s likeness.” We are in God’s image, but we will never be fully like God, because we do not share in God’s essence. Nevertheless, in the Kingdom of God, we will ever be becoming more like God. In addition, realizing this should make us realize that salvation is most definitely not a “getting back to the way things were with Adam and Eve,” because they were not the finished product. They represent humanity in this present existence, within the corruptible natural order. Salvation in Christ has always been that of the transformation of that original order into something better. As Ware puts it, “The Age to come is not simply a return to the beginning, a restoration of the original state of perfection in Paradise, but it is a fresh departure. There is to be a new heaven and a new earth; and the last things will be greater than the first” (138).
Ware then ends his book with a quote from Irenaeus: “Not only in this present age but also in the Age to come, God will always have something more to teach man, and man will always have something more to learn from God” (138).
Conclusion
There you have it—my two-month amble through Kallistos Ware’s book, The Orthodox Way. Happy New Year, and may we soon put 2020 behind us!
Joel thanks for this book review…especially part 8…I needed that!