Eschatology

Eschatology literally and properly means the doctrine concerning the last things, those which are embraced in the de'nouement of the history of the world and of the Church. The whole creation moves to what is supposed to be a far-off goal. The events comprehended in the consummation of the present dispensation are in themselves necessarily veiled from our eyes. They not only lie in the future, but the sphere in which they will take place is in some respects certainly different from the present, and this will give them a unique character. Experience, too, cannot here, as in the great doctrines of theology and soteriology, reflect any clear light; and even Revelation, although very explicit on the cardinal phenomena, becomes obscure on their concomitant details.

The Scriptures teach continually and emphatically: (1) The visible advent of our Lord as the necessary and supreme completion of his office and the glorious apocalypse of his person. The vision of the coming of the Son of Man in great power and glory stands ever before the Church as its most sublime and cheering prospect. (2) The import and object of the parousia is the universal judgment. A final retributive judicial dispensation is a postulate of the moral sense cf mankind. It is guaranteed by the faith in the justice of God. It is continually held forth by Scripture as the office of the Redeemer, the Head of the race, whose peculiar relation to God as well as to man gives him unique and absolute fitness for this function. The basis of judgment will be the law under which men had respectively their probation. All of them, whether limited to the light of nature reflected through conscience, or, under the economy of Moses revealed through him from heaven, or under the effulgence of the Gospel, fall properly under the supreme judicial authority of the Mediator, Jesus Christ, from whom, as the light of the world even before his incarnation, have ever streamed all the rays that have illuminated the minds of men. All the relations of God to the creature are mediated through his eternal Son. Therefore he has been appointed judge of the quick and the dead.

(3) As a prerequisite to the judgment the resurrection of the dead will take place. In order to be judged for the deeds done through the body, the complete personality, the body reunited with the proper soul, a renewed union adapted to a new sphere, I must stand before the Judge. This is a doctrine derived purely from Revelation. It is an inscrutable mystery, yet a fundamental truth, whose denial is pronounced inconsistent with belief in the Bible and subversive of salvation. (1 Cor. xv. 1-14.) Reason is, indeed, as incapable of denying it as it is of discovering this future fact. “Why should it be thought a thing incredible for God to raise the dead?” Its postulate of a final judgment points beyond the sphere of natural phenomena, and at least helps to prepare the mind for accepting the resurrection when revealed.

The question arises, Whether the good and the wicked will rise simultaneously? The perspective of prophecy seems to group them together, as is the case with other events occurring at long intervals. St. Paul clearly foreshadows a chronological order, with an undefined interval separating the resurrection of Christ from those that are Christ’s at his coming, and this event again from the third tdgma, the end or final goal with which the general resurrection coincides. Such phrases as “the resurrection of the just” and “the first resurrection,” and the distinction recognized in the expressions, “resurrection from the dead” and “resurrection of the dead,” have a significant if not decisive bearing on the interpretation of I Cor. xv. 23/.

(4) I he result of the judgment will be the assignment of the righteous to eternal joy. A life hid with Christ in God, begun upon earth, will attain its perfected holiness and glory in heaven. The fruits of the Spirit, gradually ripening here, will there appear in full consummation. Earthly imagery is inadequate to express those spiritual conceptions which are proper to a state of glory, and it has not entered into man’s heart to conceive what God has laid up for his own; but the redeemed may confidingly anticipate perfect freedom from sin, from pain and sorrow, from toil, conflict and temptation, from perplexity, doubt and fear. They will also enjoy a height of mental and moral development transcending the loftiest earthly aspirations, and with this a realization of the import of redemption that is not possible under present limitations.

The perfection of bliss follows from the perfection of the whole man. The fellowship of the most exalted creatures will be a marked feature of heaven, kindred spirits finding a perennial feast in each other. And higher than any other form of blessedness will be the beatific vision of God, an unclouded communion of life and love with God in the face of Jesus Christ through the Holy Ghost, the Lamb in the midst of the throne being the light of that temple, the mediating cause and centre of all blessedness.

(5) By contrast with the nature of the blessed, some conceptions can be formed of the doom of those consigned by the righteous Judge to hell. The Scriptures furthermore employ the most horrible imagery to exhibit the sufferings of those who die in their sins. Cut off from every blessing, excluded from God and from all holy beings; the craving of depraved passions intensified, yet seeking in vain for gratification; in dire distress, with no possibility of alleviation; conscious of an accumulation of sin, failure, disgrace, and loss, the remorse of conscience burning like a fire that supplies its own fu.el; with the direct punitive inflictions of a just and angry God— such are the elements of unutterable wretchedness endured by those who rejected the great salvation. The terms of Scripture leave no doubt that the punishment of the wicked goes on forever. And reason, though staggering under its contemplation, offers no valid objections to this doctrine of Revelation.

(6) While the souls of the righteous and the wicked are disembodied, their state before the resurrection cannot be the definitive stage of human development. Hence theologians speakof an intermediate state, concerning which nothing definite has been revealed, but many human speculations have been invented. According to some, the process of sanctification, left incomplete at death, advances to perfection.

According to others, all dying unregenerate will have a second probation, which another theory limits to the heathen, to infants, and all others who are supposed not to have had the offer of salvation in this world. To this state belongs also the Roman Catholic doctrine of purgatory, -which holds that those having died in the Church undergo purification through disciplinary sufferings and the intercessions and offerings of the faithful on earth.

(7) Connected with Eschatology is also the doctrine of a millennium, variously understood. The day of the Lord is viewed by many as a dispensation, an aeonic day or period, with its morn and its eve, corresponding with the glorious assumption of the kingdom by the Son and his surrender of it, completed, to the Father, a millennial age in which the Church will, with her Lord, exchange the via cruds for the via luds. Some think that the millennium will antedate the Advent.

(8) Another element embraced in the last things is the doctrine of Antichrist, a concrete personal incarnation of the opposition to Christ. The conflict with the papacy in the Reformation led to the belief that the pope was Antichrist, an idea which found its way into some Protestant confessions. From his portraiture by the Scriptures it seems clear that Antichrist will represent, not exclusively irreligious or anti-religious forces, but, as the name indicates, he will be the counterpart of the true faith and the true Redeemer. E. J. Wolf.

For the Eschatology of the Old Testa-tament see Oehler: Old Testament Theology (Eng. trans., edited by Day, New York, 1883); for the New Testament, see Weiss: Biblical Theology of the New Testament (Eng. trans., Edinburgh, 1882-83), 2 vols. A very full history and bibliography of the subject is given in Alger: Doctrine of a Future Life (10th ed., Boston, 1878); for recent works see C. M. Mead: The Soul Here and Hereafter (1879); Dorner: 7'he Future State (trans. Newman Smyth, New York, 1883); E. D. Morris: Ls there Salvation after Death? (1887); A. Hovey: Biblical Eschatology (Philadelphia, 1888) ; James Fyfe: The Hereafter (London, 1889).