Are We Living in the Last Days?
Too often when the book of Revelation is brought up it is done so in the context that right now, at this very moment in history, we are living in the “Last Days.” Often this is linked to “The Rapture” of the Church at any moment now and then the hellish world ruled by the Devil through the Antichrist and the False Prophet under a One-World-Government shall initiate the New World Order. Only then, the wrath of God shall come upon all the sinners of the world. All of this is done to get people to repent of their sins and begin living for God or be “Left Behind” to be persecuted by the Antichrist and his armies.
Building upon our last post, this is the danger of the imagination left unchecked. This a great misunderstanding of what the Last Days is and how the Apostles understood it and used it in their writings to the Church (the New Testament). It is true that we are living in the Last Days. However, the Last Days have now lasted over 1980 years! The question that arises is two. Why are the Last Days so long? And how long will they be?
To answer this, we need to understand what “an Age” is as that is not the way in which we in the postmodern world today often account for time. Most people account for time in relation to their own life and perhaps their family if they remain in the same location for multiple generations. When we are young it can seem hours and days are forever! As we get older time seems to shorten as a whole week or a couple of weeks may feel like forever, but then as we continue to age, we begin to account for time in years, then decades, and maybe if we get old enough, we might even say that was a half a century ago! Time seems to move slow when we are young and then exponentially faster and faster as we age until it may seem that life has passed us by. As we get older, we understand the Psalmist when he writes that man is like grass, like a flower here today and gone tomorrow (Psalm 103:15). It can be difficult to imagine a world beyond our own. What was the world like when your grandparents were around? And what about their parents? Or even their grandparents? It is here that we may begin to grasp what an Age is.
It may then help us to grasp what an Age is by how secular history can divide up long periods of time such as the Stone Age, the Bronze Age, and the Iron Age. It is here we can see that an age can be several hundred years to a thousand or more years collected around various cultural or archaeological events that seem to capture a long period of time. Well, the world of the Scripture is no different. Scholars divide up the Ages of the Bible in various ways. Some see three Ages, others four, and others seven. For the purposes of our discussion now it is not relevant to determine just how many Ages there are or have been, but rather to understand them as a means of accounting for the passing of time in various ways that lasted for long periods of time whereby multiple generations of people have come and gone.
In Acts 2:17 we read, “And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh.” In the Church we know this to be Pentecost whereby the Holy Spirit proceeding from the Father through the Son is given to the Body of Christ. It seems that many who get raptured with the End Times, or the Last Days seem to miss this or discount it in some way or another. However, the Apostles believed they were living in the Last Days. The Apostle Paul in writing to Timothy in 1 Timothy 4:1 and again in 2 Timothy 3:1 warns him of things that will happen in the latter times or the Last Days. Both St. Jude, the brother of Jesus, and the Apostle Peter write in their letters that in the Last Days scoffers and mockers would arise and present that those scoffers and mockers had indeed come (Jude 1:4; 2 Peter 3:3).
As an example of the different Ages by which the Apostles would then understand themselves to be living in the Last Age or the Last Days can be found in 1 Peter 1:3-12. In verse 5 the Apostle Peter refers to at the time of their salvation in Christ as the last time and then in verses 10-12 refers to an earlier time in which the prophets spoke of about this time. Then St. Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:25-28 refers to Psalm 110:1 in describing an age in which Christ must rule in the midst of His enemies and then another Age follows. In this way, Christ as Messiah is pictured as the Davidic King that like King David, ruled in the midst of his enemies and then after him, his son, King Solomon ruled in a time of peace with the nations surrounding Israel and it was a Golden Age for Israel.
Therefore, the way in which the Apostles understood the Last Days was the Age in which Christ was reigning and ruling in the midst of his enemies and after which there would come a time of visitation from the Lord. This visitation is a reference to the times in which Yahweh came and pronounced judgment upon the nations that oppressed Israel and the gods that they served. We will pick this idea up in our next post regarding the wrath of God and the judgment of God. For now, it is enough to understand that the Apostles did believe Christ would return in their lifetime and that the Last Days would be rather short, but as St. Peter says in his letter "The Lord is not slow to fulfill His promises as some count slowness, but is patient towards you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance (2 Peter 3:9)." The promise that Christ gave His Church is that He would be with us until the end of the Age, until the end of the Last Days (Matthew 28:20). Though the Last Days has now lasted 1980 years (plus or minus a few years), we can know that though He tarry in His appearing, He is still ever-present with His Church as we gather together (Matthew 18:20) and in the very presence of the Eucharist that we celebrate each and every week when we gather (Matthew 18:20; John 14:19).
Building upon our last post, this is the danger of the imagination left unchecked. This a great misunderstanding of what the Last Days is and how the Apostles understood it and used it in their writings to the Church (the New Testament). It is true that we are living in the Last Days. However, the Last Days have now lasted over 1980 years! The question that arises is two. Why are the Last Days so long? And how long will they be?
To answer this, we need to understand what “an Age” is as that is not the way in which we in the postmodern world today often account for time. Most people account for time in relation to their own life and perhaps their family if they remain in the same location for multiple generations. When we are young it can seem hours and days are forever! As we get older time seems to shorten as a whole week or a couple of weeks may feel like forever, but then as we continue to age, we begin to account for time in years, then decades, and maybe if we get old enough, we might even say that was a half a century ago! Time seems to move slow when we are young and then exponentially faster and faster as we age until it may seem that life has passed us by. As we get older, we understand the Psalmist when he writes that man is like grass, like a flower here today and gone tomorrow (Psalm 103:15). It can be difficult to imagine a world beyond our own. What was the world like when your grandparents were around? And what about their parents? Or even their grandparents? It is here that we may begin to grasp what an Age is.
It may then help us to grasp what an Age is by how secular history can divide up long periods of time such as the Stone Age, the Bronze Age, and the Iron Age. It is here we can see that an age can be several hundred years to a thousand or more years collected around various cultural or archaeological events that seem to capture a long period of time. Well, the world of the Scripture is no different. Scholars divide up the Ages of the Bible in various ways. Some see three Ages, others four, and others seven. For the purposes of our discussion now it is not relevant to determine just how many Ages there are or have been, but rather to understand them as a means of accounting for the passing of time in various ways that lasted for long periods of time whereby multiple generations of people have come and gone.
In Acts 2:17 we read, “And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh.” In the Church we know this to be Pentecost whereby the Holy Spirit proceeding from the Father through the Son is given to the Body of Christ. It seems that many who get raptured with the End Times, or the Last Days seem to miss this or discount it in some way or another. However, the Apostles believed they were living in the Last Days. The Apostle Paul in writing to Timothy in 1 Timothy 4:1 and again in 2 Timothy 3:1 warns him of things that will happen in the latter times or the Last Days. Both St. Jude, the brother of Jesus, and the Apostle Peter write in their letters that in the Last Days scoffers and mockers would arise and present that those scoffers and mockers had indeed come (Jude 1:4; 2 Peter 3:3).
As an example of the different Ages by which the Apostles would then understand themselves to be living in the Last Age or the Last Days can be found in 1 Peter 1:3-12. In verse 5 the Apostle Peter refers to at the time of their salvation in Christ as the last time and then in verses 10-12 refers to an earlier time in which the prophets spoke of about this time. Then St. Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:25-28 refers to Psalm 110:1 in describing an age in which Christ must rule in the midst of His enemies and then another Age follows. In this way, Christ as Messiah is pictured as the Davidic King that like King David, ruled in the midst of his enemies and then after him, his son, King Solomon ruled in a time of peace with the nations surrounding Israel and it was a Golden Age for Israel.
Therefore, the way in which the Apostles understood the Last Days was the Age in which Christ was reigning and ruling in the midst of his enemies and after which there would come a time of visitation from the Lord. This visitation is a reference to the times in which Yahweh came and pronounced judgment upon the nations that oppressed Israel and the gods that they served. We will pick this idea up in our next post regarding the wrath of God and the judgment of God. For now, it is enough to understand that the Apostles did believe Christ would return in their lifetime and that the Last Days would be rather short, but as St. Peter says in his letter "The Lord is not slow to fulfill His promises as some count slowness, but is patient towards you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance (2 Peter 3:9)." The promise that Christ gave His Church is that He would be with us until the end of the Age, until the end of the Last Days (Matthew 28:20). Though the Last Days has now lasted 1980 years (plus or minus a few years), we can know that though He tarry in His appearing, He is still ever-present with His Church as we gather together (Matthew 18:20) and in the very presence of the Eucharist that we celebrate each and every week when we gather (Matthew 18:20; John 14:19).
Posted in End Times
Posted in Revelatio, Last Days, End Times, Millennial Kingdom, Second Coming, Parousia
Posted in Revelatio, Last Days, End Times, Millennial Kingdom, Second Coming, Parousia
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