In the Evangelical world and in many other protestant circles, the second coming is something to look forward to at the end of the days alone. It is not rare to find a protestant preacher that decides to dress as a prophet and announce a major apocalyptic event throughout time. The protestant dreams of this second coming which is better referred to as the Parousia among the Fathers of the Church are often one involving merely the destruction of society as they perseive it rather than a cosmological reality. However, for the Catholics and the Orthodox, the second coming is an ongoing reality with indeed a finite end. In this sense, the Church does not just signify a detached Sunday event within reality in which we get together to eat some pierogi or dolma. The church marks a continuation of the Incarnation in which the Eucharist marks the final eschaton. This end is fully achieved in the reality and the mystery of the Eucharist. On the other hand, the Church exists in a continuous and progressive reality marked by the community of the saints (Rev 5:8). The second coming is therefore not solely a future event, but one which continues to develop with the last days; these days being the ones in which we inhabit.
Some [liberal] scholars take the position of Jesus being a failed prophet. This is given in the interpretation of the verses of Matt. 24:34-35; Mark 13:30-31; Luke 21:32-33. These verses denote (paraphrasing) a sense that none of those who converted to the Jesus movement within the first century would die before the second coming occurs. In short, these scholars take the position that the second coming would occur within the first or early second century. Thus, turned the Jesus movement, which is later called Christianity, into an apocalyptic Jesus sect. The evidence for such belief fades once we take a deeper look throughout the Old Testament using typological tools. “My words won’t pass away” are a reference to Isaiah 40:8 and 45:10. The never-ending words are marked on the idea of the eternity of the word of God, “The word of God will stand forever”. These realities rather than marking an apocalyptic end seem to reflect more on Jesus and/or the authors of the gospels marking Isaiah as an archetype of the Messiah, Jesus. The generation mentioned by Jesus seems to create a confessional statement rather than a nominal historical one. This is seen in Mark 8:38 in which the confession of Peter is linked together to Peter and the Church. Further belief is oriented in the similar language used in Isaiah 51:6 and 54:10; the eschaton of Israel is marked by a continuous and never-ending reality in which God never abandons his people, but offers a continuous purification. Thus, the argument on Jesus being a failed prophet only takes place if one places liberal scholarship as a non-bias entity, but I would not argue for such an event since the reality is one of the nuances and deeper than understanding history as mere events within human consciousness.
Then, moving into the deepness of the Christian faith, we can approach to analyze the Parousia from its metaphysical reality. The abandoning of Christ or simpler said of God occurs always from the perspective of the choice of men as marked in John 6:66. In this sense, the reality of the Parousia is the moving of the soul and the whole nature of humanity towards the end/goal (telos). This reality occurs in the doublet which the liturgy represents. The liturgy both indicates a mark in which the reality of worship is simply marked by entering a space within the physical time (Chronos), and as the eternal ongoing relationship that guides men towards the restoration of all the cosmos; theosis. This liturgical restoration is marked both in eternity and the time of eternity that we experience as we enter liturgical worship. Eternal time among the Fathers is called Kairos and appears often throughout the bible to denote a season (e.g. Acts 13:18). The season of Kronos known as the last days is marked by the beginning of the Holy Spirit in Pentecost and the continuing movement within Chronos until it’s eschatological completion once the reality and fullness of the Eucharist become a true symbol σύμβουλον. This is because the last days as denoted previously are a continuation of the confession of the community. The Church not only exists in a denotation of eternal time but also as a continuation of the incarnation.
The Church is not merely an ecclesiastical body of politics, nor a mystical hidden structure conformed of those that accept the faith. The church is exactly the continuation of the body of Christ which manifested a human and divine nature via the incarnation. The Church, thus as a continuum of the Incarnation indicates that through a visible sacramental reality the faithful belong to the body of Christ. The shorter way to explain what this means is that we participate in the death and resurrection of Christ which shapes us to allow us to achieve salvation not by our works, but by the sacramental grace which alone exists in the Church. This is because the Church exists within Christ and contains as the Incarnate messiah did, a hypostatic union between the Divine Nature and Human nature. In this sense, theosis/sanctification occurs through the participation of the metaphysical reality of the crucifixion and resurrection of the Lord which allows us as 2 Peter 1:4 indicates become partakers of the Divine Natures as indicated in Rev 5:8 which denotes that we become intercessors. Something that Paul took further to declare us as Judges of Angels on 1 Cor. 6:3.
As stated in the communion of the Saints, this partaking of the divine nature appears in an archetype of Deut. 32 and Psalm 82. This archetype in which angels participate in the reality of God and the ordering of the world is denoted not just by Biblical texts, but also by Jewish folklore. On the other hand, men serving as the type of this Divine Council can be seen manifested in the restored world and heaven via the grace of Christ which flows as a river of fire. The Parousia is, therefore, both a continuous and finite event. The finite event is marked by the restoration of the cosmos at the end of the cosmological liturgy as denoted by Cardinal Jean Danileou and St Maximus the Confessor. This end marks the final blessing of the liturgy in which the church reaches a full eschaton and thus the judgment of all souls and the restoration of the cosmos marks the culmination of all the sacraments. The reality of grace bestowed upon the sacramental union distributed to the Church becomes manifested as one in a lake of fire marked both as the love and righteousness of God. A final transformation of the Cosmos and the perfection of the Divine Plan among all mortal creatures thus takes place in which men finally join Christ sitting to the right of the Father.
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