Apocalypse Now

Few teachings of the Christian faith are as easily misunderstood and equally misapplied as the things pertaining to the “End of the World.” Christian history, both East and West, offers numerous examples of popular misunderstandings – some of which led to bloodbaths and the worst moments in Church history. By the same token, apocalypticism, the belief in an end of history, has had a powerful impact on the cultures in which Christianity has dwelt. Various Utopias (Marxism, Nazism, Sectarian Millenarianism, etc.) are all products of a misunderstood Christian idea. They are not the inventions of Christianity – but they could hardly have originated in any other culture. The same can be said for various Dystopias (the belief in very difficult and hard times). The imagery of the end of the world can be read both ways. In either case, the worst outcomes generally are found in groups who not only believe in one form of apocalypticism or another, but believe that their own actions can have a direct effect on the advent of the end.

Any number of apocalyptic sects have sprung up from within various Christian heresies over the centuries, many of them on American soil, a land whose first European settlers had a decidedly apocalyptic view of the world. Even Islam, sometimes described by the Orthodox fathers as a “heresy” rather than a “new religion,” has its apocalyptic element, particularly within its extreme groups.

So what is the nature of false apocalypticism and the Orthodox understanding of the End? To a large extent the primary element of false apocalypticism is rooted in a linear view of history in which everything is read in a literal manner. Linear time allows for only a succession of moments, whose cause is to be found in the moment before. God may intervene in this linear procession but the linear nature of things is not changed. We can say that in this model history can be changed, but not the nature and experience of time.

Such linearity and literalism can often reduce its devotees to caricatures of Jerry Fletcher, the near psychotic lead role in the film Conspiracy Theory (1997). He carefully read an armload of daily newspapers, looking for patterns,finding connections where none existed (but also accidentally finding some for the sake of the movie’s plot). The End, as understood in Orthodox theology, is not a cosmic conspiracy theory being wrought within the linear time-line of human history. Our newspapers do not contain hints and hidden clues to its appearance. Indeed, the entire linear conception of life and time are a failure to understand the Lord’s Pascha and what has come to pass in the Resurrection of Christ.

The language of Scripture, both in the course of Christ’s ministry and particularly in the descriptions of the disciples’ encounters with him after the resurrection, is quite peculiar, especially its treatment of time. Most Christians are familiar with Christ’s statement:

Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad.”  Then the Jews said to Him, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have You seen Abraham?”  Jesus said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM.” (John 8:56-58).

Obviously the text makes reference to the pre-existing Son of God – but the statements of Christ utterly destroy the normal sense of time. His statements are more than a mere mind-game being played by Christ – they are a revelation of the “distortion” (perhaps reconfiguration) and fulfillment of time. Christ, in St. John’s Revelation, says, “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End, the First and the Last” (Rev. 22:13). This statement, a clear proclamation of Christ’s divinity, is made purely in temporal terms – but in each of the three cases, temporal terms that are normally contradictory. The temporality of Christ cannot be stated in purely linear terms.

St. John again leaves temporality behind in the proclamation: “All who dwell on the earth will worship him, whose names have not been written in the Book of Life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” (Rev. 13:8). Christ is most surely slain on the Cross within history, and yet St. John identifies that Christ with the Lamb “slain from the foundation of the world.” Christ’s Pascha is both “historical” and yet cosmic, transcending time.

This same transcendence of history and time is an inherent part of the Orthodox understanding of worship (and ultimately of all our life). We begin the Divine Liturgy with the words, “Blessed is the Kingdom…” The priest doesn’t say, “Blessed is Thy Kingdom which is to come…” He blesses the Kingdom which is, for when we give thanks to God, we stand within His Kingdom. In the course of the liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, the priest prays and gives thanks in the past tense for the glorious second coming of Christ. What can such language mean?

It means that having been Baptized with Christ into His death and raised in the likeness of His resurrection, time has shifted from the time of this age, and now participates in the time of the age to come. We stand with the Alpha and the Omega: the Beginning and the End dwells in our hearts.

Many have rejected the Beginning and the End in favor of a “linear Christ,” either lost in their search for the “historical Jesus,” or furiously scouring their Bibles and newspapers for signs of the linear approach of a time-bound Christ. Such a Christ reduces Christianity to theories and moralisms. The linear Christ does not and cannot save. That which is bound within time is bound within death. He who has trampled down death by death, has also trampled down time by time and “brought us up to His kingdom which is to come.”

With such a transformation in our lives, we can cease to live as prisoners in our own age awaiting the return of an exiled Lord. God is with us and makes us to be with Him.

About Fr. Stephen Freeman

Fr. Stephen is a retired Archpriest of the Orthodox Church in America, Pastor Emeritus of St. Anne Orthodox Church in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. He is also author of Everywhere Present: Christianity in a One-Storey Universe, and Face to Face: Knowing God Beyond Our Shame, as well as the Glory to God podcast series on Ancient Faith Radio.



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10 responses to “Apocalypse Now”

  1. James Morgan Avatar
    James Morgan

    “Many have rejected the Beginning and the End in favor of a “linear Christ,” either lost in their search for the “historical Jesus,” or furiously scouring their Bibles and newspapers for signs of the linear approach of a time-bound Christ. Such a Christ reduces Christianity to theories and moralisms. The linear Christ does not and cannot save. That which is bound within time is bound within death. He who has trampled down death by death, has also trampled down time by time and “brought us up to His kingdom which is to come.”

    Thank you, Father, for this paragraph! As you say, a ‘time-bound’ Christ cannot save.

  2. […] that insight and others, Father Stephen Freeman reflects on the Biblical view of time as an antidote to the various Apocalyptic schemes so common within […]

  3. Andrew Battenti Avatar

    The NT Fathers all seem to agree that the root of heresy is (literally) the cooling down of love. This is far less clear in the OT writings but then true religion was never a collection of sayings but a being and a doing.

  4. franzwa Avatar

    “That which is bound within time is bound within death. He who has trampled down death by death, has also trampled down time by time and “brought us up to His kingdom which is to come.”

    Glory to God. Thanks for sharing this truth.

  5. […] his latest post Apocalypse Now, Father Stephen draws an interesting connection between the “linear Christ” of popular […]

  6. MichaelPatrick Avatar
    MichaelPatrick

    Father, I appreciate your thesis! Allow me to say in addition that time and space are gifts given to us –who, without Christ, are limited by nature– so that we may distinguish one thing from another and one person from another. They are merely, like laws, schoolmasters bringing us to Christ. For example, we learn about sonship by being chronologically individuated from our own father. This can be for better or for worse, but God always desires our best. Time may be rolled up when it is no longer useful, but it is meant to be good for us. BTW, Met. Zizioulas has a wonderful little discussion of time and space in his book “Lectures in Christian Dogmatics”. I found it helpful because it is written simply, not just for professionals and academics.

  7. fatherstephen Avatar

    Michael, the necessity of time and space are obvious – but – and it is well to bless God for all things. But we must draw the line at using such temporalities as a basis of theology (even for the present). The distortions it yields are note in the article. I’ll look for the piece by Met. Zizioulas.

  8. Patricia Avatar
    Patricia

    I am reminded of what Fr. Meletios Webber states in his book, “Bread & Water, Wine & Oil” in the chapter on the Divine LIturgy and Holy Communion — that in the original Greek or in the Slavonic translation, the “priest actually says ‘Blessed the Kingdom…’ for there is no “is” and therefore no tense. “It is ‘is’, but it is also ‘was’ and ‘will be’ — it is the eternal now, the ‘acceptable time’ of which St. Paul speaks (2 Corinthians 6:2). It is as if the action of starting the service captures eternity.”

    Orthodox hymns give us many opportunities to sing phrases that reflect this same non-linear view of time (aka “the eternal now”): “Today the Virgin gives birth to the Transcendent One.” “Today a sacred Pascha is revealed to us.” “On this day Thou didst rise from the tomb, O Merciful One, leading us from the gates of death. On this day Adam exults as Eve rejoices; with the prophets and patriarchs they unceasingly praise the divine majesty of Thy power!”

    Holy icons proclaim this same reality of the Kingdom when they depict pairs or groups of individuals from differing times, places and/or cultures participating together in an event placed within linear time. Fr. Meletios refers to an icon that has been prepared and blessed as remaining a “protrusion of eternity, of the Kingdom, into the present world.”

  9. George Avatar

    Oh, that we can learn that we live in His time, His kingdom. George

  10. simmmo Avatar
    simmmo

    Father Stephen, we live in a created world in which time and space are realities. And God called this time/space/material world “very good”. It seems that we were created to be creatures of time and space and that God has affirmed this. How do we grasp the goodness of this time/space/material world on the one hand, whilst understanding that God’s future has been brought forth into the present by the resurrection of Christ on the other? Similarly, how do we understand your statement: “That which is bound within time is bound within death”, without lurching into dualism? It seems as though you are saying that this world, with it’s space and time realities, is not good. Thanks

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