es-ka-tol'-o-ji:
I. DOCTRINAL AND RELIGIOUS SIGNIFICANCE
II. GENERAL STRUCTURE
III. COURSE OF DEVELOPMENT
IV. GENERAL AND INDIVIDUAL ESCHATOLOGY
V. THE PAROUSIA
1. Definition
2. Signs Preceding the Parousia
3. Events Preceding the Parousia
(1) The Conversion of Israel
(2) The Coming of the Antichrist
4. The Manner of the Parousia
VI. THE RESURRECTION
1. Its Universality
2. The Millennium
3. The Resurrection of Believers
4. The Resurrection-Body
VII. THE CHANGE OF THOSE LIVING AT THE PAROUSIA
VIII. THE JUDGMENT
IX. THE CONSUMMATE STATE
X. THE INTERMEDIATE STATE
The subject of eschatology plays a prominent part in New
Testament teaching and religion. Christianity in its very origin bears an
eschatological character. It means the appearance of the Messiah and the
inauguration of His work; and from the Old Testament point of view these form
part of eschatology. It is true in Jewish theology the days of the Messiah were
not always included in the eschatological age proper, but often regarded as
introductory to it (compare Weber, Judische Theol. 2,371 ff). And in the New
Testament also this point of view is to some extent represented, inasmuch as,
owing to the appearance of the Messiah and the only partial fulfillment of the
prophecies for the present, that which the Old Testament depicted as one
synchronous movement is now seen to divide into two stages, namely, the present
Messianic age and the consummate state of the future. Even so, however, the New
Testament draws the Messianic period into much closer connection with the
strictly eschatological process than Judaism. The distinction in Judaism rested
on a consciousness of difference in quality between the two stages, the content
of the Messianic age being far less spiritually and transcendentally conceived
than that of the final state. The New Testament, by spiritualizing the entire
Messianic circle of ideas, becomes keenly alive to its affinity to the content
of the highest eternal hope, and consequently tends to identify the two, to
find the age to come anticipated in the present. In some cases this assumes
explicit shape in the belief that great eschatological transactions have
already begun to take place, and that believers have already attained to at
least partial enjoyment of eschatological privileges. Thus the present kingdom
in our Lord's teaching is one in essence with the final kingdom; according to
the discourses in John eternal life is in principle realized here; with Paul
there has been a prelude to the last judgment and resurrection in the death and
resurrection of Christ, and the life in the Spirit is the first-fruits of the
heavenly state to come. The strong sense of this may even express itself in the
paradoxical form that the eschatological state has arrived and the one great
incision in history has already been made (Heb 2:3, 1; Heb 9:11; Heb 10:1; Heb
12:22-24). Still, even where this extreme consciousness is reached, it nowhere
supersedes the other more common representation, according to which the present
state continues to lie this side of the eschatological crisis, and, while
directly leading up to the latter, yet remains to all intents a part of the old
age and world-order. Believers live in the "last days," upon them
"the ends of the ages are come," but "the last day,"
"the consummation of the age," still lies in the future (Mt 13:39,
40, 49; Mt 24:3; Mt 28:20; Jn 6:39, 44, 54; Jn 12:48; 1Cor 10:11; 2Tim 3:1; Heb
1:2; Heb 9:26; Jas 5:3; 1Pet 1:5, 20; 2Pet 3:3; 1Jn 2:18; Jude 1:18).
The eschatological interest of early believers was no mere
fringe to their religious experience, but the very heart of its inspiration. It
expressed and embodied the profound supernaturalism and soteriological
character of the New Testament faith. The coming world was not to be the
product of natural development but of a Divine interposition arresting the
process of history. And the deepest motive of the longing for this world was a
conviction of the abnormal character of the present world, a strong sense of
sin and evil. This explains why the New Testament doctrine of salvation has
grown up to a large extent in the closest interaction with its eschatological
teaching. The present experience was interpreted. in the light of the future.
It is necessary to keep this in mind for a proper appreciation of the generally
prevailing hope that the return of the Lord might come in the near future.
Apocalyptic calculation had less to do with this than the practical experience
that the earnest of the supernatural realities of the life to come was present
in the church, and that therefore it seemed unnatural for the full fruition of
these to be long delayed. The subsequent receding of this acute eschatological
state has something to do with the gradual disappearance of the miraculous
phenomena of the apostolic age.
New Testament eschatology attaches itself to the Old
Testament and to Jewish belief as developed on the basis of ancient revelation.
It creates on the whole no new system or new terminology, but incorporates much
that was current, yet so as to reveal by selection and distribution of emphasis
the essential newness of its spirit. In Judaism there existed at that time two
distinct types of eschatological outlook. There was the ancient national hope
which revolved around the destiny of Israel. Alongside of it existed a
transcendental form of eschatology with cosmical perspective, which had in view
the destiny of the universe and of the human race. The former of these
represents the original form of Old Testament eschatology, and therefore
occupies a legitimate place in the beginnings of the New Testament development,
notably in the revelations accompanying the birth of Christ and in the earlier
(synoptical) preaching of John the Baptist. There entered, however, into it, as
held by the Jews, a considerable element of individual and collective
eudaemonism, and it had become identified with a literalistic interpretation of
prophecy, which did not sufficiently take into account the typical import and
poetical character of the latter. The other scheme, while to some extent the
product of subsequent theological development, lies prefigured in certain later
prophecies, especially in Dnl, and, far from being an importation from
Babylonian, or ultimately Persian, sources, as some at present maintain,
represents in reality the true development of the inner principles of Old
Testament prophetic revelation. To it the structure of New Testament
eschatology closely conforms itself. In doing this, however, it discards the
impure motives and elements by which even this relatively higher type of Jewish
eschatology was contaminated. In certain of the apocalyptic writings a
compromise is attempted between these two schemes after this manner, that the
carrying out of the one is merely to follow that of the other, the national hope
first receiving its fulfillment in a provisional Messianic kingdom of limited
duration (400 or 1,000 years), to be superseded at the end by the eternal
state. The New Testament does not follow the Jewish theology along this path.
Even though it regards the present work of Christ as preliminary to the
consummate order of things, it does not separate the two in essence or quality,
it does not exclude the Messiah from a supreme place in the coming world, and
does not expect a temporal Messianic kingdom in the future as distinguished
from Christ's present spiritual reign, and as preceding the state of eternity.
In fact the figure of the Messiah becomes central in the entire eschatological
process, far more so than is the case in Judaism. All the stages in this process,
the resurrection, the judgment, the life eternal, even the intermediate state,
receive the impress of the absolute significance which Christian faith ascribes
to Jesus as the Christ. Through this Christocentric character New Testament
eschatology acquires also far greater unity and simplicity than can be
predicated of the Jewish schemes. Everything is practically reduced to the
great ideas of the resurrection and the judgment as consequent upon the Greek
[Parousia] of Christ. Much apocalyptic embroidery to which no spiritual
significance attached is eliminated. While the overheated fantasy tends to
multiply and elaborate, the religious interest tends toward concentration and
simplification.
In New Testament eschatological teaching a general
development in a well-defined direction is traceable. The starting-point is the
historico-dramatic conception of the two successive ages. These two ages are
distinguished as Greek [houtos ho aion, ho nun aion, ho enesios aion], "this
age," "the present age" (Mt 12:32; Mt 13:22; Lk 16:8; Rom 12:2;
1Cor 1:20; 1Cor 2:6, 8; 1Cor 3:18; 2Cor 4:4; Gal 1:4; Eph 1:21; Eph 2:2; Eph
6:12; 1Tim 6:17; 2Tim 4:10; Tit 2:12), and Greek [ho aion ekeinos, ho aion
mellon, ho aion erchomenos], "that age," "the future age"
(Mt 12:32; Lk 18:30; Lk 20:35; Eph 2:7; Heb 6:5). In Jewish literature before
the New Testament, no instances of the developed antithesis between these two
ages seem to be found, but from the way in which it occurs in the teaching of
Jesus and Paul it appears to have been current at that time. (The oldest
undisputed occurrence is a saying of Johanan ben Zaqqay, about 80 AD.) The
contrast between these two ages is (especially with Paul) that between the evil
and transitory, and the perfect and abiding. Thus, to each age belongs its own
characteristic order of things, and so the distinction passes over into that of
two "worlds" in the sense of two systems (in Hebrew and Aramaic the
same word Hebrew ['olam], Hebrew ['olam], does service for both, in Greek
[aion] usually renders the meaning "age," occasionally
"world" (Heb 1:2; Heb 11:3), Greek [kosmos] meaning
"world"; the latter, however, is never used of the future world).
Compare Dalman, Die Worte Jesu, I, 132-46. Broadly speaking, the development of
New Testament eschatology consists in this, that the two ages are increasingly
recognized as answering to two spheres of being which coexist from of old, so
that the coming of the new age assumes the character of a revelation and
extension of the supernal order of things, rather than that of its first
entrance into existence. Inasmuch as the coming world stood for the perfect and
eternal, and in the realm of heaven such a perfect, eternal order of things
already existed, the reflection inevitably arose that these two were in some
sense identical. But the new significance which the antithesis assumes does not
supersede the older historicodramatic form. The higher world so interposes in
the course of the lower as to bring the conflict to a crisis. The passing over
of the one contrast into the other, therefore, does not mark, as has frequently
been asserted, a recession of the eschatological wave, as if the interest had
been shifted from the future to the present life. Especially in the Fourth
Gospel this "de-eschatologizing" process has been found, but without
real warrant. The apparent basis for such a conclusion is that the realities of
the future life are so vividly and intensely felt to be existent in heaven and
from there operative in the believer's life, that the distinction between what
is now and what will be hereafter enjoyed becomes less sharp. Instead of the
supersedure of the eschatological, this means the very opposite, namely, its
most real anticipation. It should further be observed that the development in
question is intimately connected and keeps equal pace with the disclosure of
the preexistence of Christ, because this fact and the descent of Christ from
heaven furnished the clearest witness to the reality of the heavenly order of
things. Hence, it is especially observable, not in the earlier epistles of
Paul, where the structure of eschatological thought is still in the main
historico-dramatic, but in the epistles of the first captivity (Eph 1:3, 10-22;
Eph 2:6; Eph 3:9, 10; Eph 4:9, 10; Eph 6:12; Phil 2:5-11; Phil 3:20; Col 1:15,
17; Col 3:2; further, in Heb 1:2, 3; Heb 2:5; Heb 3:4; Heb 6:5, 11; Heb 7:13,
16; Heb 9:14; Heb 11:10, 16; Heb 12:22, 23). The Fourth Gospel marks the
culmination of this line of teaching, and it is unnecessary to point out how
here the contrast between heaven and earth in its christological consequences
determines the entire structure of thought. But here it also appears how the
last outcome of the New Testament progress of doctrine had been anticipated in
the highest teaching of our Lord. This can be accounted for by the inherent
fitness that the supreme disclosures which touch the personal life of the
Saviour should come not through any third person, but from His own lips.
In the Old Testament the destiny of the nation of Israel to
such an extent overshadows that of the individual, that only the first
rudiments of an individual eschatology are found. The individualism of the
later prophets, especially Jeremiah and Ezekiel, bore fruit in the thought of
the intermediate period. In the apocalyptic writings considerable concern is
shown for the ultimate destiny of the individual. But not until the New
Testament thoroughly spiritualized the conceptions of the last things could
these two aspects be perfectly harmonized. Through the centering of the
eschatological hope in the Messiah, and the suspending of the individual's
share in it on his personal relation to the Messiah, an individual significance
is necessarily imparted to the great final crisis. This also tends to give
greater prominence to the intermediate state. Here, also, apocalyptic thought
had pointed the way. None the less the Old Testament point of view continues to
assert itself in that even in the New Testament the main interest still
attaches to the collective, historical development of events. Many questions in
regard to the intermediate period are passed by in silence. The Old Testament
prophetic foreshortening of the perspective, immediately connecting each present
crisis with the ultimate goal, is reproduced in New Testament eschatology on an
individual scale in so far as the believer's life here is linked, not so much
with his state after death, but rather with the consummate state after the
final judgment. The present life in the body and the future life in the body
are the two outstanding illumined heights between which the disembodied state
remains largely in the shadow. But the same foreshortening of the perspective
is also carried over from the Old Testament into the New Testament delineation
of general eschatology. The New Testament method of depicting the future is not
chronological. Things lying widely apart to our chronologically informed
experience are by it drawn closely together. This law is adhered to doubtless
not from mere limitation of subjective human knowledge, but by reason of
adjustment to the general method of prophetic revelation in Old Testament and
New Testament alike.
The word denotes "coming," "arrival."
It is never applied to the incarnation of Christ, and could be applied to His
second coming only, partly because it had already become a fixed Messianic
term, partly because there was a point of view from which the future appearance
of Jesus appeared the sole adequate expression of His Messianic dignity and
glory. The explicit distinction between "first advent" and
"second advent" is not found in the New Testament. It occurs in
Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs, Testament of Abraham 92:16. In the New Testament
it is approached in Heb 9:28 and in the use of Greek [epiphaneia] for both the
past appearance of Christ and His future manifestation (2Thess 2:8; 1Tim 6:14;
2Tim 1:10; 2Tim 4:1; Tit 2:11, 13). The Christian use of the word Greek
[parousia] is more or less colored by the consciousness of the present bodily
absence of Jesus from His own, and consequently suggests the thought of His
future abiding presence, without, however, formally coming to mean the state of
the Saviour's presence with believers (1Thess 4:17). Greek [Parousia] occurs in
Mt 24:3, 17, 39; 1Cor 15:23; 1Thess 2:19; 1Thess 3:13; 1Thess 4:15; 1Thess
5:23; 2Thess 2:1, 8; Jas 5:7, 8; 2Pet 1:16; 2Pet 3:4, 12; 1Jn 2:28. A
synonymous term is Greek [apokalupsis], "revelation," probably also
of pre-Christian origin, presupposing the pre-existence of the Messiah in
hidden form previous to His manifestation, either in heaven or on earth
(compare Apocrypha Baruch 29:3; Baruch 30:1; 4Ezra (2Esdras 7:28); Testament of
the Twelve Patriarchs, Testament of Levi 18; Jn 7:27; 1Pet 1:20). It could be
adopted by Christians because Christ had been withdrawn into heaven and would
be publicly demonstrated the Christ on His return, hence used with special
reference to enemies and unbelievers (Lk 17:30; Acts 3:21; 1Cor 17; 2Thess 1:7,
8; 1Pet 1:13, 10; 1Pet 5:4). Another synonymous term is "the day of the
(Our) Lord," "the day," "that day," "the day of
Jesus Christ." This is the rendering of the well-known Old Testament phrase.
Though there is no reason in any particular passage why "the Lord"
should not be Christ, the possibility exists that in some cases it may refer to
God (compare "day of God" in 2Pet 3:12). On the other hand, what the
Old Testament with the use of this phrase predicates of God is sometimes in the
New Testament purposely transferred to Christ. "Day," while employed
of the Greek [parousia] generally, is, as in the Old Testament, mostly
associated with the judgment, so as to become a synonym for judgment (compare
Acts 19:38; 1Cor 4:3). The phrase is found in Mt 7:22; Mt 24:36; Mk 13:32; Lk
10:12; Lk 17:24; Lk 21:34; Acts 2:20; Rom 13:12; 1Cor 1:8; 1Cor 3:13; 1Cor 5:5;
2Cor 1:14; Phil 1:6; Phil 2:16; 1Thess 5:2, 4 (compare 1Thess 5:5, 8); 2Thess
2:2; 2Tim 1:12, 18; 2Tim 4:8; Heb 10:25; 2Pet 3:10.
The Greek [parousia] is preceded by certain signs heralding
its approach. Judaism, on the basis of the Old Testament, had worked out the
doctrine of "the woes of the Messiah," Hebrew [chebhele ha-mashiach],
the calamities and afflictions attendant upon the close of the present and the
beginning of the coming age being interpreted as birth pains of the latter.
This is transferred in the New Testament to the Greek [parousia] of Christ. The
phrase occurs only in Mt 24:8; Mk 13:8, the idea, in Rom 8:22, and allusions to
it occur probably in 1Cor 7:26; 1Thess 3:3; Besides these general
"woes," and also in accord with Jewish doctrine, the appearance of
the Antichrist is made to precede the final crisis. Without Jewish precedent,
the New Testament links with the Greek [parousia] as preparatory to it, the
pouring out of the Spirit, the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple, the
conversion of Israel and the preaching of the gospel to all the nations. The
problem of the sequence and interrelation of these several precursors of the
end is a most difficult and complicated one and, as would seem, at the present
not ripe for solution. The "woes" which in our Lord's eschatological
discourse (Mt 24; Mk 13; Lk 21) are mentioned in more or less close accord with
Jewish teaching are: (1) wars, earthquakes and famines, "the beginning of
travail"; (2) the great tribulation; (3) commotions among the heavenly
bodies; compare Rev 6:2-17. For Jewish parallels to these, compare Charles,
Eschatology, 326,327. Because of this element which the discourse has in common
with Jewish apocalypses, it has been assumed by Colani, Weiffenbach,
Weizsacker, Wendt, et al., that here two sources have been welded together, an
actual prophecy of Jesus, and a Jewish or Jewish-Christian apocalypse from the
time of the Jewish War 68-70 (Historia Ecclesiastica, III, 5,3). In the text of
Mark this so-called "small apocalypse" is believed to consist of Mk
13:7, 8, 14-20, 24-27, 30, 31. But this hypothesis mainly springs from the
disinclination to ascribe to Jesus realistic eschatological expectations, and
the entirely unwarranted assumption that He must have spoken of the end in
purely ethical and religious terms only. That the typically Jewish
"woes" bear no direct relation to the disciples and their faith is
not a sufficient reason for declaring the prediction of them unworthy of Jesus.
A contradiction is pointed out between the two representations, that the Greek
[parousia] will come suddenly, unexpectedly, and that it will come heralded by
these signs. Especially in Mk 13:30, 32 the contradiction is said to be
pointed. To this it may be replied that even after the removal of the assumed
apocalypse the same twofold representation remains present in what is
recognized as genuine discourse of Jesus, namely, in Mk 13:28, 29 as compared
with Mk 13:32, 33-37 and other similar admonitions to watchfulness. A real
contradiction between Mk 13:30 and Mk 13:32 does not exist. Our Lord could
consistently affirm both: "This generation shall not pass away, until all
these things be accomplished," and "of that day or that hour knoweth
no one." To be sure, the solution should not be sought by understanding
"this generation" of the Jewish race or of the human race. It must
mean, according to ordinary usage, then living generation. Nor does it help
matters to distinguish between the prediction of the Greek [parousia] within
certain wide limits and the denial of knowledge as to the precise day and hour.
In point of fact the two statements do not refer to the same matter at all.
"That day or that hour" in Mk 13:32 does not have "these
things" of Mk 13:30 for its antecedent. Both by the demonstrative pronoun
"that" and by "but" it is marked as an absolute self-explanatory
conception. It simply signifies as elsewhere the day of the Lord, the day of
judgment. Of "these things," the exact meaning of which phrase must
be determined from the foregoing, Jesus declares that they will come to pass
within that generation; but concerning the Greek [parousia], "that (great)
day," He declares that no one but God knows the time of its occurrence.
The correctness of this view is confirmed by the preceding parable, Mark 13:28,
29, where in precisely the same way "these things" and the Greek
[parousia] are distinguished. The question remains how much "these
things" (verse 29; Lk 21:31), "all these things" (Mt 24:33, 14,
Mk 13:30), "all things" (Lk 21:32) is intended to cover of what is
described in the preceding discourse. The answer will depend on what is there
represented as belonging to the precursors of the end, and what as strictly
constituting part of the end itself; and on the other question whether Jesus
predicts one end with its premonitory signs, or refers to two crises each of
which will be heralded by its own series of signs. Here two views deserve
consideration. According to the one (advocated by Zahn in his Commentary on Mt,
652-66) the signs cover only Mt 24:4-14. What is related afterward, namely,
"the abomination of desolation," great tribulation, false prophets
and Christs, commotions in the heavens, the sign of the Son of Man, all this
belongs to "the end" itself, in the absolute sense, and is therefore
comprehended in the Greek [parousia] and excepted from the prediction that it
will happen in that generation, while included in the declaration that only God
knows the time of its coming. The destruction of the temple and the holy city,
though not explicitly mentioned in Mt 24:4-14, would be included in what is
there said of wars and tribulation. The prediction thus interpreted would have
been literally fulfilled. The objections to this view are: (1) It is unnatural
thus to subsume what is related in Mt 24:15-29 under "the end." From
a formal point of view it does not differ from the phenomena of Mt 24:4-14 which
are "signs." (2) It creates the difficulty, that the existence of the
temple and the temple-worship in Jerusalem are presupposed in the last days
immediately before the Greek [parousia]. The "abomination of
desolation" taken from Dan 8:13; Dan 9:27; Dan 11:31; Dan 12:11; compare
Sirach 49:2 -- according to some, the destruction of the city and temple,
better a desecration of the temple-site by the setting up of something
idolatrous, as a result of which it becomes desolate -- and the flight from Judea,
are put among events which, together with the Greek [parousia], constitute the
end of the world. This would seem to involve chiliasm of a very pronounced
sort. The difficulty recurs in the strictly eschatological interpretation of
2Thess 2:3, 1, where "the man of sin" (seeSIN, MAN OF) is represented
as sitting in "the temple of God" and in Rev 11:1, 2, where "the
temple of God" and "the altar," and "the court which is
without the temple" and "the holy city" figure in an episode
inserted between the sounding of the trumpet of the sixth angel and that of the
seventh. On the other hand it ought to be remembered that eschatological
prophecy makes use of ancient traditional imagery and stereotyped formulas,
which, precisely because they are fixed and applied to all situations, cannot
always bear a literal sense, but must be subject to a certain degree of
symbolical and spiritualizing interpretation. In the present case the
profanation of the temple by Antiochus Epiphanes may have furnished the imagery
in which, by Jesus, Paul and John, anti-Christian developments are described of
a nature which has nothing to do with Israel, Jerusalem or the temple,
literally understood. (3) It is not easy to conceive of the preaching of the
gospel to all the nations as falling within the lifetime of that generation. It
is true Rom 1:13; Rom 10:18; Rom 15:19-24; Col 1:6; 1Tim 3:16; 2Tim 4:17 might
be quoted in support of such a view. In the statement of Jesus, however, it is
definitely predicted that the preaching of the gospel to all the nations not
only must happen before the end, but that it straightway precedes the end:
"Then shall the end come" (Mt 24:14). To distinguish between the
preaching of the gospel to all the nations and the completion of the
Gentilemission, as Zahn proposes, is artificial. As over against these
objections, however, it must be admitted that the grouping of all these later
phenomena before the end proper avoids the difficulty arising from
"immediately" in Mt 24:29 and from "in those days" in Mk
13:24.
The other view has been most lucidly set forth by Briggs,
Messiah of the Gospels, 132-65. It makes Jesus' discourse relate to two things:
(1) the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple; (2) the end of the world. He
further assumes that the disciples are informed with respect to two points: (1)
the time; (2) the signs. In the answer to the time, however, the two things are
not sharply distinguished, but united into one prophetic perspective, the Greek
[parousia] standing out more conspicuously. The definition of the time of this
complex development is: (a) negative (Mk 13:5-8); (b) positive (Mk 13:9-13). On
the other hand in describing the signs Jesus discriminates between (a) the
signs of the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple (Mk 13:14-20); (b) the signs
of the Greek [parousia] (Mk 13:24-27). This view has in its favor that the
destruction of the temple and the city, which in the question of the disciples
figured as an eschatological event, is recognized as such in the answer of
Jesus, and not alluded to after a mere incidental fashion, as among the signs.
Especially the version of Lk 21:20-24 proves that it figures as an event. This
view also renders easier the restriction of Mk 13:30 to the first event and its
signs. It places "the abomination of desolation" in the period
preceding the national catastrophe. The view that the two events are
successively discussed is further favored by the movement of thought in Mk
13:32ff. Here, after the Apocalypse has been brought to a close, the
application to the disciples is made, and, in the same order as was observed in
the prophecy, first, the true attitude toward the national crisis is defined in
the parable of the Fig Tree and the solemn assurance appended that it will
happen in this generation (Mk 13:28-31); secondly, the true attitude toward the
Greek [parousia] is defined (Mk 13:32-37). The only serious objection that may
be urged against this view arises from the close concatenation of the section
relating to the national crisis with the section relating to the Greek
[parousia] (Mt 24:29: "immediately after .... those days"; Mk 13:24:
"in those days"). The question is whether this mode of speaking can
be explained on the principle of the well-known foreshortening of the
perspective of prophecy. It cannot be a priori denied that this peculiarity of
prophetic vision may have here characterized also the outlook of Jesus into the
future which, as Mk 13:32 shows, was the prophetic outlook of His human nature
as distinct from the Divine omniscience. The possibility of misinterpreting
this feature and confounding sequence in perspective with chronological
succession is in the present case guarded against by the statement that the
gospel must first be preached to all the nations (compare Acts 3:19, 25, 26;
Rom 11:25; Rev 6:2) before the end can come, that no one knows the time of the
Greek [parousia] except God, that there must be a period of desolation after
the city shall have been destroyed, and that the final coming of Jesus to the
people of Israel will be a coming not of judgment, but one in which they shall
hail Him as blessed (Mt 23:38, 39; Lk 13:34, 35), which presupposes an interval
to account for this changed attitude (compare Lk 21:24: "until the times
of the Gentiles be fulfilled"). It is not necessary to carry the
distinction between the two crises joined together here into the question as
put by the disciples in Mt 24:3, as if "when shall these things be?"
related to the destruction of the temple exclusively, as the other half of the
question speaks of the coming of Jesus and the end of the world. Evidently here
not the two events, but the events (complexly considered) and the signs are
distinguished. "These things" has its antecedent not exclusively in
Mt 24:2, but even more in Mt 23:38, 39. The disciples desired to know not so
much when the calamitous national catastrophe would come, but rather when that
subsequent coming of the Lord would take place, which would put a limit to the
distressing results of this catastrophe, and bring with it the reacceptance of
Israel into favor. This explains also why Jesus does not begin His discourse
with the national crisis, but first takes up the question of the Greek
[parousia], to define negatively and positively the time of the latter, and
that for the purpose of warning the disciples who in their eagerness for the
ultimate issue were inclined to foreshorten the preceding calamitous
developments. That Jesus could actually join together the national and the
cosmical crises appears from other passages, such as Mt 10:23, where His
interposition for the deliverance of the fugitive disciples is called a
"coming" of the Son of Man (Mt 16:28; Mk 9:1; Lk 9:27, where a coming
of the Son of Man in His kingdom (Matthew), or a coming of the kingdom of God
with power (Mark), or a seeing of the kingdom of God (Luke) is promised to some
of that generation). It is true these passages are frequently referred to the
Greek [parousia], because in the immediately preceding context the latter is
spoken of. The connection of thought, however, is not that the Greek [parousia]
and this promised coming are identical. The proximate coming is referred to as
an encouragement toward faithfulness and self-sacrifice, just as the reward at
the Greek [parousia] is mentioned for the same purpose. The conception of an
earlier coming also receives light from the confession of Jesus at His trial
(Mt 26:64; where the "henceforth" refers equally to the coming on the
clouds of heaven and to the sitting at the right hand of God; compare Mk 14:62;
Lk 22:69). The point of the declaration is, that He who now is condemned will
in the near future appear in theophany for judgment upon His judges. The
closing discourses of John also have the conception of the coming of Jesus to
His disciples in the near future for an abiding presence, although here this is
associated with the advent of the Spirit (Jn 14:18, 19, 21, 23; Jn 16:16, 19,
22, 23). Finally the same idea recurs in Rev, where it is equally clear that a
preliminary visitation of Christ and not the Greek [parousia] for final
judgment can be meant (Jn 2:5, 16; Jn 3:3, 10; compare also the plural
"one of the days of the Son of man" in Lk 17:22).
To the events preceding the Greek [parousia] belongs,
according to the uniform teaching of Jesus, Peter and Paul, the conversion of
Israel (Mt 23:39; Lk 13:35; Acts 1:6, 7; Acts 3:19, 21; where the arrival of
"seasons of refreshing" and "the times of restoration of all
things" is made dependent on the (eschatological) sending of the Christ to
Israel), and this again is said to depend on the repentance and conversion and
the blotting out of the sins of Israel; Rom 11, where the problem of the
unbelief of Israel is solved by the twofold proposition: (1) that there is even
now among Israel an election according to grace; (2) that in the future there
will be a comprehensive conversion of Israel (Rom 11:5, 25-32).
Among the precursors of the Greek [parousia] appears
further the Antichrist. The word is found in the New Testament in 1Jn 2:18, 22;
1Jn 4:3; 2Jn 1:7 only, but the conception occurs also in the Synoptics, in Paul
and in Revelation. There is no instance of its earlier occurrence in Jewish
literature. Anti may mean "in place of" and "against"; the
former includes the latter. In Jn it is not clear that the heretical tendencies
or hostile powers connected with the anti-Christian movement make false claim
to the Messianic dignity. In the Synoptics the coming of false Christs and false
prophets is predicted, and that not merely as among the nearer signs (Mk 13:6),
but also in the remote eschatological period (Mk 13:22). With Paul, who does
not employ the word, the conception is clearly the developed one of the
counter-Christ. Paul ascribes to him an apokalupsis as he does to Christ
(2Thess 2:6, 8); his manner of working and its pernicious effect are set over
against the manner in which the gospel of the true Christ works (1Thess 9-12).
Paul does not treat the idea as a new one; it must have come down from the Old
Testament and Jewish eschatology and have been more fully developed by New
Testament prophecy; compare in Dan 7:8, 20; Dan 8:10, 11 the supernaturally
magnified figure of the great enemy. According to Gunkel (Schopfung und Chaos,
1895) and Bousset (Der Antichrist in der Uberlieferung des Judenthums, des New
Testament und der allen Kirche, 1875) the origin of the conception of a final
struggle between God and the supreme enemy must be sought in the ancient myth
of Chaos conquered by Marduk; what had happened at the beginning of the world
was transferred to the end. Then this was anthropomorphized, first in the form
of a false Messiah, later in that of a political tyrant or oppressor. But there
is no need to assume any other source for the idea of a last enemy than Old
Testament eschatological prophecy (Ezekiel and Daniel and Zechariah). And no
evidence has so far been adduced that the Pauline idea of a counter-Messiah is
of pre-Christian origin. This can only be maintained by carrying back into the
older period the Antichrist tradition as found later among Jews and Christians.
It is reasonable to assume in the present state of the evidence that the
combination of the two ideas, that of the great eschatological enemy and that
of the counter-Messiah, is a product of Christian prophecy. In fact even the
conception of a single last enemy does not occur in pre-Christian Jewish
literature; it is found for the first time in Apocrypha Baruch 40:1, 2, which
changes the general conception of 4 Ezra to this effect. Even in the
eschatological discourse of Jesus the idea is not yet unified, for false
Christs and false prophets in the plural are spoken of, and the instigator of
"the abomination of desolation," if any is presupposed, remains in
the background. In the Epistle of John the same plural representation occurs
(1Jn 2:18, 22; 2Jn 1:7), although the idea of a personal Antichrist in whom the
movement culminates is not only familiar to the author and the reader (1Jn
2:18, "as ye heard that antichrist cometh"), but is also accepted by
the writer (1Jn 4:3, "This is the spirit of the antichrist, whereof ye
have heard that it cometh; and now it is in the world already"; compare
2Thess 2:7, "The mystery of lawlessness doth already work").
Various views have been proposed to explain the concrete
features of the Pauline representation in 2Thess 2 and that of Rev 13 and Rev
17. According to Schneckenburger, JDT, 1859, and Weiss, SK, 1869, Paul has in
mind the person whom the Jews will acclaim as their Messiah. The idea would
then be the precipitate of Paul's experience of hostility and persecution from
the part of the Jews. He expected that this Jewish Messianic pretender would,
helped by Satanic influence, overthrow the Roman power. The continuance of the
Roman power is "that which restraineth," or as embodied in the
emperor, "one that restraineth now" (2Thess 2:6, 7). (For an
interesting view in which the roles played by these two powers are reversed,
compare Warfield in The Expositor, 3rd series, IV, 30-44.) The objection to
this is that "the lawless one," not merely from Paul's or the
Christian point of view, but in his own avowed intent, opposes and exalts
himself against all that is called God or worshipped. This no Jewish pretender
to the Messiahship could possibly do: his very Messianic position would
preclude it. And the conception of a counter-Christ does not necessarily point
to a Jewish environment, for the idea of Messiahship had in Paul's mind been
raised far above its original national plane and assumed a universalistic
character (compare Zahn, Einleitung in das NT(1), I, 171). Nor does the feature
that according to 2Thess 2:4, "the lawless one" will take his seat in
the temple favor the view in question, for the desecration of the temple by Antiochus
Epiphanes and later similar experiences may well have contributed to the figure
of the great enemy the attribute of desecrator of the temple. It is not
necessary to assume that by Paul this was understood literally; it need mean no
more than that the Antichrist will usurp for himself Divine honor and worship.
Patristic and later writers gave to this feature a chiliastic interpretation,
referring it to the temple which was to be rebuilt in the future. Also the
allegorical exegesis which understands "the temple" of the Christian
church has found advocates. But the terms in which "the lawless one"
is described exclude his voluntary identification with the Christian church.
According to a second view the figure is not a Jewish but a pagan one. Kern,
Baur, Hilgenfeld and many others, assuming that 2Thess is post-Pauline, connect
the prophecy with the at-one-time current expectation that Nero, the great
persecutor, would return from the East or from the dead, and, with the help of
Satan, set up an anti-Christian kingdom. The same expectation is assumed to
underlie Rev 13:3, 12, 14 (one of the heads of the beast smitten unto death and
his death stroke healed); Rev 17:8, 10, 11 (the beast that was, and is not, and
is about to come up out of the abyss; the eighth king, who is one of the seven
preceding kings). As to Paul's description, there is nothing in it to make us
think of a Nero reappearing or redivivus. The Greek [parousia] predicated of
the lawless one does not imply it, for Greek [parousia] as an eschatological
term means not "return" but "advent." The Antichrist is not
depicted as a persecutor, and Nero was the persecutor paragraph excellence. Nor
does what is said about the "hindering" or the "hinderer"
suit the case of Nero, for the later Roman emperors could not be said to hold
back Nero's reappearance. As to Revelation, it must be admitted that the role
here ascribed to the beast would be more in keeping with the character of Nero.
But, as Zahn has well pointed out (Einleitung in das NT(1), II, 617-26), this
interpretation is incompatible with the date of Revelation. This book must have
been written at a date when the earlier form of the expectation that Nero would
reappear still prevailed, namely, that he would return from the East to which
he had fled. Only when too long an interval had elapsed to permit of further
belief in Nero's still being alive, was this changed into the superstition that
he would return from the dead. But this change in the form of the belief did
not take place until after Revelation must have been written. Consequently, if
the returning Nero did figure in Revelation, it would have to be in the form of
one reappearing from the East. As a matter of fact, however, the beast or the
king in which Nero is found is said by Rev 13:1; Rev 17:8 to have been smitten
unto death and healed of the death stroke, to come up out of the sea or the
abyss, which would only suit the later form of the expectation. It is therefore
necessary to dissociate the description of the beast and its heads and horns
entirely from the details of the succession of the Roman empire; the prophecy
is more grandly staged; the description of the beast as partaking of several
animal forms in Rev 13:2 refers back to Daniel, and here as there must be
understood of the one world-power in its successive national manifestations,
which already excludes the possibility that a mere succession of kings in one
and the same empire can be thought of. The one of the heads smitten unto death
and the death stroke healed must refer to the world-power to be made powerless
in one of its phases, but afterward to revive in a new phase. Hence, here
already the healing of the death stroke is predicated, not merely of one of the
heads, but also of the beast itself (compare Rev 13:3 with Rev 13:12). And the
same interpretation seems to be required by the mysterious statements of Rev
17, where the woman sitting upon the beast is the metropolis of the
world-power, changing its seat together with the latter, yet so as to retain,
like the latter in all its transformations, the same character whence she bears
the same name of Babylon (Rev 17:5). Here as in Rev 13 the beast has seven
heads, i.e. passes through seven phases, which idea is also expressed by the
representation that these seven heads are seven kings (Rev 17:10), for, as in
Dan 7, the kings stand not for individual rulers, but for kingdoms, phases of
the world-power. This explains why in Rev 17:11 the beast is identified with
one of the kings. When here the further explanation, going beyond Rev 13, is
added, that the beast was and is not and is about to come up out of the abyss
(Rev 13:8), and in Rev 13:10, 11 that of the seven kings five are fallen, one
is, the other is not yet come, and when he comes must continue a little while,
to be followed by the eighth, who is identical with the beast that was and is
not, and with one of the seven, the only way to reconcile these statements lies
in assuming that "the beast," while in one sense a comprehensive
figure for the world-power in all its phases, can also in another sense
designate the supreme embodiment and most typical manifestation of the
world-power in the past; in respect to this acute phase the beast was and is
not and is to appear again, and this acute phase was one of seven successive forms
of manifestation, and in its reappearance will add to this number the eighth.
Although a certain double sense in the employment of the figures thus results,
this is no greater than when on the other view Nero is depicted both as
"the beast" and as one of the heads of "the beast." Which
concrete monarchies are meant by these seven phases is a matter of minor
importance. For a suggestion compare Zahn, op. cit., II, 624: (1) Egypt; (2)
Assyria; (3) Babylon; (4) the Medo-Persian power; (5) the Greco-Alexandrian
power; (6) the Roman power; (7) a short-lived empire to succeed Rome; (8) the
eighth and last phase, which will reproduce in its acute character the fifth,
and will bring on the scene the Antichrist, the counterpart and, as it were,
reincarnation of Antiochus Epiphanes. The seer evidently has his present in the
Roman phase of the power of the beast, and this renders it possible for him to
give in Rev 17:9 another turn to the figure of the seven heads, interpreting it
of the seven mountains on which the woman sits, but this apocalyptic looseness
of handling of the imagery can furnish no objection to the view just outlined,
since on any view the two incongruous explanations of the seven heads as seven
mountains and seven kings stand side by side in Rev 17:9 and Rev 10. Nor should
the mysterious number of 666 in Rev 13:18 be appealed to in favor of the
reference of the beast to Nero, for on the one hand quite a number of other
equally plausible or implausible solutions of this riddle have been proposed, and
on the other hand the interpretation of Nero is open to the serious objection,
that in order to make out the required number from the letters of Nero's name
this name has to be written in Hebrew characters and that with scriptio
defectiva of Hebrew [Qesar] (Hebrew [Neron Qesar]) instead of Hebrew [Qeisar],
the former of which two peculiarities is out of keeping with the usage of the
book elsewhere (compare Zahn, op. cit., II, 622,624,625, where the chief
proposed explanations of the no. 666 are recorded). Under the circumstances the
interpretation of the figure of the beast and its heads must be allowed to
pursue its course independently of the mystery of the no. 666 in regard to
which no certain conclusion appears attainable.
The following indicates the degree of definiteness to
which, in the opinion of the writer, it is possible to go in the interpretation
of the prophecy. The terms in which, Paul speaks remind of Daniel's description
of the "little horn." Similarly Rev attaches itself to the imagery of
the beasts in Daniel. Both Paul and Rev also seem to allude to the
self-deification of rulers in the Hellenistic and Roman world (compare
Zeitsehrift fur neutestamentliche Wissenschaft, 1904,335ff). Both, therefore,
appear to have in mind a politically organized world-power under a supreme
head. Still in both cases this power is not viewed as the climax of enmity
against God on account of its political activity as such, but distinctly on
account of its self-assertion in the religious sphere, so that the whole
conception is lifted to a higher plane, purely spiritual standards being
applied in the judgment expressed. Paul so thoroughly applies this principle
that in his picture the seductive, deceptive aspect of the movement in the
sphere of false teaching is directly connected with the person of "the
lawless one" himself (2Thess 2:9-12), and not with a separate organ of
false prophecy, as in Rev 13:11-17 (the second beast). In Revelation, as shown
above, the final and acute phase of anti-Christian hostility is clearly
distinguished from its embodiment in the Roman empire and separated from the
latter by an intermediate stage. In Paul, who stands at a somewhat earlier
point in the development of New Testament prophecy, this is not so clearly
apparent. Paul teaches that the "mystery of lawlessness" is already
at work in his day, but this does not necessarily involve that the person of
"the lawless one," subsequently to appear, must be connected with the
same phase of the world-power, with which Paul associates this mystery already
at work, since the succeeding phases being continuous, this will also insure
the continuity between the general principle and its personal representative,
even though the latter should appear at a later stage. It is impossible to
determine how far Paul consciously looked beyond the power of the Roman empire
to a later organization as the vehicle for the last anti-Christian effort. On
the other hand, that Paul must have thought of "the lawless one" as
already in existence at that time cannot be proven. It does not follow from the
parallelism between his "revelation" and the Greek [parousia] of
Christ, for this "revelation" has for its correlate simply a previous
hidden presence for some time somewhere, not an existence necessarily extending
to Paul's time or the time of the Roman empire, far less a pre-existence, like
unto Christ's, in the supernatural world. Nor is present existence implied in
what Paul says of "the hindering power." This, to be sure, is
represented as asserting itself at that very time, but the restraint is not
exerted directly upon "the lawless one"; it relates to the power of
which he will be the ultimate exponent; when this power, through the removal of
the restraint, develops freely, his revelation follows. According to Rev 13:9
his "Greek [parousia] is according to the working of Satan," but
whether this puts a supernatural aspect upon the initial act of his appearance
or relates more to his subsequent presence and activity in the world, which
will be attended with all powers and signs and lying wonders, cannot be
determined with certainty. But the element of the supernatural is certainly
there, although it is evidently erroneous to conceive of "the lawless
one" as an incarnation of Satan, literally speaking. The phrase "according
to the working of Satan" excludes this, and "the lawless one" is
a true human figure, "the man of sin" (or "the man of
lawlessness," according to another reading; compare the distinction
between Satan and "the beast" in Rev 20:10), Rev 13:3. The "power"
and "signs" and "wonders" are not merely
"seeming"; the genitive pseudous is not intended to take them out of
the category of the supernatural, but simply means that what they are intended
to accredit is a lie, namely, the Divine dignity of "the lawless
one." Most difficult of all is the determination of what Paul means by the
hindering power or the hinderer in Rev 13:7. The most common view refers this
to the Roman authority as the basis of civil order and protection, but there
are serious objections to this. If Paul at all associated the Antichrist in any
way with the Roman power, he cannot very well have sought the opposite
principle in the same quarter. And not only the hindering power but also the
hindering person seems to be a unit, which latter does not apply to the Roman
empire, which had a succession of rulers. It is further difficult to dismiss
the thought that the hindering principle or person must be more or less
supernatural, since the supernatural factor in the work of "the lawless
one" is so prominent. For this reason there is something attractive in the
old view of von Hofmann, who assumed that Paul borrowed from Dnl, besides other
features, also this feature that the historical conflict on earth has a
supernatural background in the world of spirits (compare Dan 10). A more
precise definition, however, is impossible. Finally it should be noticed that,
as in the eschatological discourse of Jesus "the abomination of
desolation" appears connected with an apostasy within the church through
false teaching (Mk 13:22, 23), so Paul joins to the appearance of "the
lawless one" the destructive effect of error among many that are lost
(2Thess 2:9-12). The idea of the Antichrist in general and that of the apostasy
in particular reminds us that we may not expect an uninterrupted progress of
the Christianization of the world until the Greek [parousia]. As the reign of
the truth will be extended, so the forces of evil will gather strength,
especially toward the end. The universal sway of the kingdom of God cannot be
expected from missionary effort alone; it requires the eschatological
inter-position of God.
In regard to the manner and attending circumstances of the
Greek [parousia] we learn that it will be widely visible, like the lightning
(Mt 24:27; Lk 17:24; the point of comparison does not lie in the suddenness);
to the unbelieving it will come unexpectedly (Mt 24:37-42; Lk 17:26-32; 1Thess
5:2, 3). A sign will precede, "the sign of the Son of Man," in regard
to the nature of which nothing can be determined. Christ will come "on the
clouds," "in clouds," "in a cloud," "with great
power and glory" (Mt 24:30; Mk 13:26; Lk 21:27); attended by angels (Mt
24:31 (compare Mt 13:41; Mt 16:27; Mk 8:38; Lk 9:26); Mk 13:27; 2Thess 1:7).
The resurrection coincides with the Greek [parousia] and
the arrival of the future neon (Lk 20:35; Jn 6:40; 1Thess 4:16). From 1Thess
3:13; 1Thess 4:16 it has been inferred that the dead rise before the descent of
Christ from heaven is completed; the sounds described in the later passage are
then interpreted as sounds accompanying the descent (compare Ex 19:16; Isa
27:13; Mt 24:31; 1Cor 15:52; Heb 12:19; Rev 10:7; Rev 11:15; "the trump of
God" = the great eschatological trumpet). The two words for the
resurrection are Greek [egeirein], "to wake," and Greek [anistanai],
"to raise," the latter less common in the active than in the
intransitive sense.
The New Testament teaches in some passages with sufficient
clearness that all the dead will be raised, but the emphasis rests to such an
extent on the soteriological aspect of the event, especially in Paul, where it
is closely connected with the doctrine of the Spirit, that its reference to
non-believers receives little notice. This was already partly so in the Old
Testament Isa 26:19; Dan 12:2). In the intervening Jewish literature the
doctrine varies; sometimes a resurrection of the martyrs alone is taught (Enoch
90); sometimes of all the righteous dead of Israel (Psalms of Solomon 3:10ff;
Enoch 91 through Enoch 94.); sometimes of all the righteous and of some wicked
Israelites (Enoch 1 through Enoch 36); sometimes of all the righteous and all
the wicked (4 Ezra (2Esdras) 2Esdras 5:45; 2Esdras 7:32; Apocrypha Baruch 42:8;
Baruch 50:2). Josephus ascribes to the Pharisees the doctrine that only the
righteous will share in the resurrection. It ought to be noticed that these
apocalyptic writings which affirm the universality of the resurrection present
the same phenomena as the New Testament, namely, that they contain passages
which so exclusively reflect upon the resurrection in its bearing upon the
destiny of the righteous as to create the appearance that no other resurrection
was believed in. Among the Pharisees probably a diversity of opinion prevailed
on this question, which Josephus will have obliterated. our Lord in His
argument with the Sadducees proves only the resurrection of the pious, but does
not exclude the other (Mk 12:26, 27); "the resurrection of the just"
in Lk 14:14 may suggest a twofold resurrection. It has been held that the
phrase, Hebrew [he anastasis he ek nekron] (Lk 20:35; Acts 4:2), always
describes the resurrection of a limited number from among the dead, whereas
Hebrew [he anastasisis ton nekron] would be descriptive of a universal
resurrection (Plummer, Commentary on Lk 20:35), but such a distinction breaks
down before an examination of the passages.
The inference to the universality of the resurrection
sometimes drawn from the universality of the judgment is scarcely valid, since
the idea of a judgment of disembodied spirits is not inconceivable and actually
occurs. On the other hand the punishment of the judged is explicitly affirmed
to include the body (Mt 10:28). It cannot be proven that the term
"resurrection" is ever in the New Testament eschatologically employed
without reference to the body, of the quickening of the spirit simply (against,
Fries, in ZNTW, 1900,291ff). The sense of our Lord's argument with the
Sadducees does not require that the patriarchs were at the time of Moses in
possession of the resurrection, but only that they were enjoying the
covenant-life, which would in due time inevitably issue in the resurrection of
their bodies. The resemblance (or "equality") to the angels (Mk
12:25) does not consist in the disembodied state, but in the absence of
marriage and propagation. It has been suggested that Hebrews contains no direct
evidence for a bodily resurrection (Charles, Eschatology, 361), but compare Heb
11:22, 35; Heb 12:2; Heb 13:20. The spiritualism of the epistle points, in
connection with its Pauline type of teaching, to the conception of a pneumatic
heavenly body, rather than to a disembodied state.
The New Testament confines the event of the resurrection to
a single epoch, and nowhere teaches, as chiliasm assumes, a resurrection in two
stages, one, at the Greek [parousia], of saints or martyrs, and a second one at
the close of the millennium. Although the doctrine of a temporary Messianic
kingdom, preceding the consummation of the world, is of pre-Christian Jewish
origin, it had not been developed in Judaism to the extent of assuming a
repeated resurrection; the entire resurrection is always placed at the end. The
passages to which this doctrine of a double resurrection appeals are chiefly
Acts 3:19-21; 1Cor 15:23-28; Phil 3:9-11; 1Thess 4:13-18; 2Thess 1:5-12; Rev
20:1-6. In the first-named passage Peter promises "seasons of refreshing,"
when Israel shall have repented and turned to God. The arrival of these
coincides with the sending of the Christ to the Jews, i.e. with the Greek
[parousia]. It is argued that Peter in Acts 3:21, "whom the heavens must
(present tense) receive until the times of restoration of all things,"
places after this coming of Jesus to His people a renewed withdrawal of the
Lord into heaven, to be followed in turn, after a certain interval, by the
restoration of all things. The "seasons of refreshing" would then
constitute the millennium with Christ present among His people. While this
interpretation is not grammatically impossible, there is no room for it in the
general scheme of the Petrine eschatology, for the Greek [parousia] of Christ
is elsewhere represented as bringing not a provisional presence, but as
bringing in the day of the Lord, the day of judgment (Acts 2:17-21). The
correct view is that "the seasons of refreshing" and "the times
of restoration of all things" are identical; the latter phrase relates to
the prospects of Israel as well as the former, and should not be understood in
the later technical sense. The present tense in Acts 3:21 "must
receive" does not indicate that the reception of Christ into heaven still
lies in the future, but formulates a fixed eschatological principle, namely,
that after His first appearance the Christ must be withdrawn into heaven till
the hour for the Greek [parousia] has come.
In 1Cor 15:23-28 two Greek [tagmata], "orders,"
of the resurrection are distinguished, and it is urged that these consist of
"believers" and "non-believers." But there is no reflection
here upon non-believers at all, the two "orders" are Christ, and they
that are Christ's. "The end" in 1Cor 15:24 is not the final stage in
the resurrection, i.e. the resurrection of non-believers, but the end of the
series of eschatological events. The kingdom of Christ which comes to a close
with the end is not a kingdom beginning with the Greek [parousia], but dates
from the exaltation of Christ; it is to Paul not future but already in
operation.
In 1Thess 4:13-18 the presupposition is not that the
readers had worried about a possible exclusion of their dead from the
provisional reign of Christ and from a first resurrection, but that they had
sorrowed even as the Gentiles who have no hope whatever, i.e. they had doubted
the fact of the resurrection as such. Paul accordingly gives them in 1Thess
4:14 the general assurance that in the resurrection of Jesus that of believers
is guaranteed. The verb "precede" in 1Thess 4:15 does not imply that
there was thought of precedence in the enjoyment of glory, but is only an
emphatic way of affirming that the dead will not be one moment behind in
inheriting with the living the blessedness of the Greek [parousia]. In 1Thess
4:17, "so shall we ever be with the Lord," the word "ever"
excludes the conception of a provisional kingdom. 2Thess 1:5-12 contains merely
the general thought that sufferings and glory, persecution and the inheritance
of the kingdom are linked together. There is nothing to show that this glory
and kingdom are aught else but the final state, the kingdom of God (2Thess
1:5).
In Phil 3:9-11, it is claimed, Paul represents attainment
to the resurrection as dependent on special effort on his part, therefore as
something not in store for all believers. Since the general resurrection
pertains to all, a special grace of resurrection must be meant, i.e. inclusion
in the number of those to be raised at the Greek [parousia], at the opening of
the millennial kingdom. The answer to this is, that it was quite possible to
Paul to make the resurrection as such depend on the believer's progress in
grace and conformity to Christ, seeing that it is not an event out of all
relation to his spiritual development, but the climax of an organic process of
transformation begun in this life. And in verse 20 the resurrection of all is
joined to the Greek [parousia] (compare for the Pauline passages Vos, "The
Pauline Eschatology and Chiliasm," PTR, 1911,26-60).
The passage Rev 20:1-6 at first sight much favors the
conception of a millennial reign of Christ, participated in by the martyrs,
brought to life in a first resurrection, and marked by a suspension of the
activity of Satan. And it is urged that the sequence of visions places this
millennium after the Greek [parousia] of Christ narrated in Rev 19. The
question of historic sequence, however, is in Revelation difficult to decide.
In other parts of the book the principle of "recapitulation," i.e. of
cotemporaneousness of things successively depicted, seems to underlie the
visions, and numbers are elsewhere in the book meant symbolically. These facts
leave open the possibility that the thousand years are synchronous with the
earlier developments recorded, and symbolically describe the state of glorified
life enjoyed with Christ in heaven by the martyrs during the intermediate
period preceding the Greek [parousia]. The terms employed do not suggest an
anticipated bodily resurrection. The seer speaks of "souls" which
"lived" and "reigned," and finds in this the first
resurrection. The scene of this life and reign is in heaven, where also the
"souls" of the martyrs are beheld (Rev 6:9). The words "this is
the first resurrection" may be a pointed disavowal of a more realistic
(chiliastic) interpretation of the same phrase. The symbolism of the thousand
years consists in this, that it contrasts the glorious state of the martyrs on
the one hand with the brief season of tribulation passed here on earth, and on
the other hand with the eternal life of the consummation. The binding of Satan
for this period marks the first eschatological conquest of Christ over the
powers of evil, as distinguished from the renewed activity to be displayed by
Satan toward the end in bringing up against the church still other forces not
hitherto introduced into the conflict. In regard to a book so enigmatical, it
were presumptuous to speak with any degree of dogmatism, but the uniform
absence of the idea of the millennium from the eschatological teaching of the
New Testament elsewhere ought to render the exegete cautious before affirming
its presence here (compare Warfield, "The Millennium and the
Apocalypse," PTR, 1904,599-617).
The resurrection of believers bears a twofold aspect. On
the one hand it belongs to the forensic side of salvation. On the other hand it
belongs to the pneumatic transforming side of the saving process. Of the
former, traces appear only in the teaching of Jesus (Mt 5:9; Mt 22:29-32; Lk
20:35, 36). Paul clearly ascribes to the believer's resurrection a somewhat
similar forensic significance as to that of Christ (Rom 8:10, 23; 1Cor
15:30-32, 55-58). Far more prominent with him is, however, the other, the
pneumatic interpretation. Both the origin of the resurrection life and the
continuance of the resurrection state are dependent on the Spirit (Rom 8, 10,
11; 1Cor 15:45-49; Gal 6:8). The resurrection is the climax of the believer's
transformation (Rom 8:11; Gal 6:8). This part ascribed to the Spirit in the
resurrection is not to be explained from what the Old Testament teaches about
the Spirit as the source of physical life, for to this the New Testament hardly
ever refers; it is rather to be explained as the correlate of the general
Pauline principle that the Spirit is the determining factor of the heavenly
state in the coming eon. This pneumatic character of the resurrection also
links together the resurrection of Christ and that of the believer. This idea
is not yet found in the Synoptics; it finds expression in Jn 5:22-29; Jn 11:25;
Jn 14:6, 19. In early apostolic teaching a trace of it may be found in Acts
4:2. With Paul it appears from the beginning as a well-established principle.
The continuity between the working of the Spirit here and His part in the
resurrection does not, however, lie in the body. The resurrection is not the
culmination of a pneumatic change which the body in this life undergoes. There
is no preformation of the spiritual body on earth. Rom 8:10, 11; 1Cor 15:49;
2Cor 5:1, 2; Phil 3:12 positively exclude this, and 2Cor 3:18; 2Cor 4:7-18 do
not require it. The glory into which believers are transformed through the
beholding (or reflecting) of the glory of Christ as in a mirror is not a bodily
but inward glory, produced by illumination of the gospel. And the manifestation
of the life of Jesus in the body or in the mortal flesh refers to the
preservation of bodily life in the midst of deadly perils. Equally without
support is the view that at one time Paul placed the investiture with the new
body immediately after death. It has been assumed that this, together with the
view just criticized, marks the last stage in a protracted development of
Paul's eschatological belief. The initial stage of this process is found in
1Thessalonians: the resurrection is that of an earthly body. The next stage is
represented by 1Corinthians: the future body is pneumatic in character,
although not to be received until the Greek [parousia]. The third stage removes
the inconsistency implied in the preceding position between the character of
the body and the time of its reception, by placing the latter at the moment of
death (2Corinthians, Romans, Colossians), and by an extreme flight of faith the
view is even approached that the resurrection body is in process of development
now (Teichmann, Charles). This scheme has no real basis of fact. 1Thessalonians
does not teach an unpneumatic eschatology (compare 1Th 4:14, 16). The second
stage given is the only truly Pauline one, nor can it be shown that the apostle
ever abandoned it. For the third position named finds no support in 2Cor
5:1-10; Rom 8:19; Col 3:4. The exegesis of 2Cor 5:1-10 is difficult and cannot
here be given in detail. Our understanding of the main drift of the passage,
put into paraphrase, is as follows: we feel assured of the eternal weight of
glory (2Cor 4:17), because we know that we shall receive, after our earthly
tent-body shall have been dissolved (aorist subjunctive), a new body, a
supernatural house for our spirit, to be possessed eternally in the heavens. A sure
proof of this lies in the heightened form which our desire for this future
state assumes. For it is not mere desire to obtain a new body, but specifically
to obtain it as soon as possible, without an intervening period of nakedness,
i.e. of a disembodied state of the spirit. Such would be possible, if it were
given us to survive till the Greek [parousia], in which case we would be
clothed upon with our habitation from heaven (= supernatural body), the old
body not having to be put off first before the new can be put on, but the new
body being superimposed upon the old, so that no "unclothing" would
have to take place first, what is mortal simply being swallowed up of life
(2Cor 5:2, 4). And we are justified in cherishing this supreme aspiration,
since the ultimate goal set for us in any case, even if we should have to die
first and to unclothe and then to put on the new body over the naked spirit,
since the ultimate goal, I say, excludes under all circumstances a state of
nakedness at the moment of the Greek [parousia] (2Cor 5:3). Since, then, such a
new embodied state is our destiny in any event, we justly long for that mode of
reaching it which involves least delay and least distress and avoids
intermediate nakedness. (This on the reading in 2Cor 5:3 of Greek [ei ge kai
endusamenoi ou gumnoi heurethesometha]. If the reading Greek [ei ge kai
ekdusamenoi] be adopted the rendering of 2Cor 5:3 will have to be: "If so
be that also having put off (i.e. having died), we shall not at the end be
found naked." If Greek [eiper kai ekdusamenoi] be chosen it will be:
"Although even having put off (i.e. having died) we shall not at the end
be found naked." These other readings do not materially alter the sense.)
The understanding of the passage will be seen to rest on the pointed
distinction between being "clothed upon," change at the Greek
[parousia] without death (2Cor 5:2, 4), to be "unclothed," loss of
the body in death with nakedness resulting (2Cor 5:4), and "being
clothed," putting on of the new body after a state of nakedness (2Cor
5:3). Interpreted as above, the passage expresses indeed the hope of an
instantaneous endowment with the spiritual body immediately after this life,
but only on the supposition that the end of this life will be at the Greek
[parousia], not for the case that death should intervene before, which latter
possibility is distinctly left open. In Rom 8:19 what will happen at the end to
believers is called a "revealing of the sons of God," not because
their new body existed previously, but because their status as sons of God
existed before, and this status will be revealed through the bestowal upon them
of the glorious body. Col 3:3, 1 speaks of a "life .... hid with Christ in
God," and of the "manifestation" of believers with Christ in
glory at the Greek [parousia], but "life" does not imply bodily
existence, and while the "manifestation" at the Greek [parousia]
presupposes the body, it does not imply that this body must have been acquired
long before, as is the case with Christ's body. In conclusion it should be
noted that there is ample evidence in the later epistles that Paul continued to
expect the resurrection body at the Greek [parousia] (2Cor 5:10; Phil 3:20,
21).
The main passage informing us as to the nature of the
resurrection body is 1Cor 15:35-58. The difficulty Paul here seeks to relieve
does not concern the substance of the future body, but its kind (compare 1Cor
15:35 "With what manner of body do they come?"). Not until 1Cor 15:50
is the deeper question of difference in substance touched upon. The point of
the figure of "sowing" is not that of identity of substance, but
rather this, that the impossibility of forming a concrete conception of the
resurrection body is no proof of its impossibility, because in all vegetable
growth there appears a body totally unlike that which is sown, a body the
nature and appearance of which are determined by the will of God. We have no
right to press the figure in other directions, to solicit from it answers to
other questions. That there is to be a real connection between the present and
the future body is implied rather than directly affirmed. 1Cor 15:36 shows that
the distinction between the earthly body and a germ of life in it, to be
entrusted with it to the grave and then quickened at the last day, does not lie
in the apostle's mind, for what is sown is the body; it dies and is quickened
in its entirety. Especially the turn given to the figure in 1Cor 15:37 -- that
of a naked grain putting on the plant as a garment -- proves that it is neither
intended nor adapted to give information on the degree of identity or link of
continuity between the two bodies. The "bare grain" is the body, not
the spirit, as some would have it (Teichmann), for it is said of the seed that
it dies; which does not apply to the Greek [Pneuma] (compare also 1Cor 15:44).
The fact is that in this entire discussion the subjective spirit of the
believer remains entirely out of consideration; the matter is treated entirely
from the standpoint of the body. So far as the Greek [Pneuma] enters into it,
it is the objective Spirit, the Spirit of Christ. As to the time of the sowing,
some writers take the view that this corresponds to the entire earthly life,
not to the moment of burial only (so already Calvin, recently Teichmann and
Charles). In 1Cor 15:42, 43 there are points of contact for this, inasmuch as
especially the three last predicates "in dishonor," "in
weakness," "a natural body," seem more applicable to the living
than to the dead body. At any rate, if the conception is thus widened, the act
of burial is certainly included in the sowing. The objection arising from the
difficulty of forming a conception of the resurrection body is further met in
1Cor 15:39-41, where Paul argues from the multitude of bodily forms God has at
His disposal. This thought is illustrated from the animal world (1Cor 15:39);
from the difference between the heavenly and the earthly bodies (1Cor 15:40);
from the difference existing among the heavenly bodies themselves (1Cor 15:41).
The structure of the argument is indicated by the interchange of two words for
"other," Greek [allos] and Greek [heteros], the former designating
difference of species within the genus, the latter difference of genus, a
distinction lost in the English version. In all this the reasoning revolves not
around the substance of the bodies but around their kind, quality, appearance
(Greek [sarx] in 1Cor 15:39 = Greek [soma], "body," not =
"flesh"). The conclusion drawn is that the resurrection body will
differ greatly in kind from the present body. It will be Greek [heteros], not
merely Greek [allos]. The points of difference are enumerated in 1Cor 15:42,
43. Four contrasts are named; the first three in each case appear to be the
result of the fourth. The dominating antithesis is that between the Greek [soma
psuchikon] and the Greek [soma pneumatikon]. Still Paul can scarcely mean to
teach that "corruption," "dishonor," "weakness"
are in the same sense necessary and natural results of the
"psychical" character of the earthly body, as the corresponding
opposites are necessary and natural concomitants of the pneumatic character of
the resurrection body. The sequel shows that the "psychical body" was
given man at creation, and according to 1Cor 15:53 corruption and death go
together, whereas death is not the result of creation but of the entrance of
sin according to Paul's uniform teaching elsewhere. Hence, also the predicate
Greek [sarkikos] is avoided in 1Cor 15:46, 47, where the reference is to
creation, for this word is always associated in Paul with sin. The connection,
therefore, between the "natural (psychical, margin) body" and the
abnormal attributes conjoined with it, will have to be so conceived, that in
virtue of the former character, the body, though it need not of itself, yet
will fall a prey to the latter when sin enters. In this lies also the
explanation of the term "psychical body." This means a body in which
the Greek [psuche], the natural soul, is the vitalizing principle, sufficient
to support life, but not sufficient to that supernatural, heavenly plane, where
it is forever immune to death and corruption. The question must be asked,
however, why Paul goes back to the original state of man's body and does not
content himself with contrasting the body in the state of sin and in the state
of eternal life. The answer is found in the exigency of the argument. Paul
wished to add to the argument for the possibility of a different body drawn
from analogy, an argument drawn from the typical character of the original
creation-body. The body of creation, on the principle of prefiguration, pointed
already forward to a higher body to be received in the second stage of the
world-process: 'if there exists a psychical body, there exists also a pneumatic
body' (1Cor 15:44). The proof lies in Gen 2:7. Some think that Paul here adopts
the Philonic doctrine of the creation of two men, and means 1Cor 15:45b as a
quotation from Gen 1:27. But the sequence is against this, for Paul's spiritual
man appears on the scene last, not first, as in Philo. Nor can the statement
have been meant as a correction of Philo's sequence, for Paul cannot have
overlooked that, once a double creation were found in Gen 1 and 2, then Philo's
sequence was the only possible one, to correct which would have amounted to
correcting Scripture. If Paul does here correct Philo, it must be in the sense
that he rejects the entire Philonic exegesis, which found in Genesis a twofold
creation (compare 1Cor 11:7). Evidently for Paul, Gen 2:7 taken by itself contains
the proof of his proposition, that there is both a psychical and a pneumatic
body. Paul regarded the creation of the first Adam in a typical light. The
first creation gave only the provisional form in which God's purpose with
reference to man was embodied, and in so far looked forward to a higher
embodiment of the same idea on a higher pneumatic plane (compare Rom 5:14):
"The first man is of the earth, earthy: the second man is of heaven"
(1Cor 15:47); "of" or "from heaven" does not designate
heavenly material, for even here, by not giving the opposite to Greek
[choikos], "earthly," Paul avoided the question of substantiality. A
"pneumatic" body is not, as many assume, a body made out of Greek
[pneuma] as a higher substance, for in that case Paul would have had Greek
[pneumatikon] ready at hand as the contrast to Greek [choikon]. Only negatively
the question of substance is touched upon in 1Cor 15:50: "Flesh and blood
cannot inherit the kingdom of God," but the apostle does not say what will
take their place. Compare further, for the non-substantial meaning of Greek
[pneumatikos], Rom 15:27; 1Cor 9:11; 1Cor 10:3, 1; Eph 1:3; Eph 5:19; Eph 6:12;
Col 1:9. The only positive thing which we learn in this direction is formal,
namely, that the resurrection body of the believer will be the image of that of
Christ (1Cor 15:49).
This is confined to believers. Of a change in the body of
non-believers found living or raised at the Greek [parousia] the New Testament
nowhere speaks. The passages referring to this subject are 1Cor 15:51-53; 2Cor
5:1-5; Phil 3:20, 21. The second of these has already been discussed: it
represents the change under the figure of a putting-on of the heavenly body
over the earthly body, in result of which what is mortal is swallowed up so as
to disappear by life. This representation starts with the new body by which the
old body is absorbed. In 1Cor 15 and Phil 3, on the other hand, the point of
departure is from the old body which is changed into a new. The difference
between the resurrection and the charge of the living is brought out in 2Cor
5:1-5 in the two figures of "putting on" and "putting on
over" endusasthai and ependusasthai. Some exegetes find in 1Cor 15:51-53
the description of a process kept in such general terms as to be equally
applicable to those raised and to those transformed alive. If this be adopted
it yields new evidence for the continuity between the present body and the
resurrection body. Others, however, find here the expectation that Paul and his
readers will "all" survive until the Greek [parousia], and be changed
alive, in which case no light is thrown on the resurrection-process. The more
plausible exegesis is that which joins the negative to "all" instead
of to the verb, and makes Paul affirm that "not all" will die, but
that all, whether dead or surviving, will be changed at the Greek [parousia];
the difficulty of the exegesis is reflected in the early attempts to change the
reading. In Phil 3:20, 21 there are no data to decide whether the apostle
conceives of himself and his readers as living at the moment of the Greek
[parousia] or speaks generally so as to cover both possibilities.
The judgment takes place on a "day" (Mt 7:22; Mt
10:15; Mt 24:36; Lk 10:12; Lk 21:34; 1Cor 1:8; 1Cor 3:13; 2Tim 4:8; Rev 6:17),
but this rests on the Old Testament conception of "the day of
Yahweh," and is not to be taken literally, whence also "hour"
interchanges with "day" (Mk 13:32; Rev 14:7). While not confined to
an astronomical day the judgment is plainly represented as a definitely
circumscribed transaction, not as an indefinite process. It coincides with its
Greek [parousia]. Of a judgment immediately after death, the New Testament
nowhere speaks, not even in Heb 9:27, 28. Its locality is the earth, as would
seem to follow from its dependence on the Greek [parousia] (Mt 13:41, 42; Mk
13:26, 27), although some infer from 1Thess 4:17 that, so far as believers are
concerned, it will take place in the air. But this passage does not speak of
the judgment, only of the Greek [parousia] and the meeting of believers with
Christ. The judge is God (Mt 6:4, 6, 14, 18; Mt 10:28, 32ff = Lk 12:8ff; Lk
21:36; Acts 10:42; Acts 17:30, 31; Rom 2:2, 3, 5, 16; Rom 14:10; 1Cor 4:3-5; 1Cor
5:13; Heb 12:25; Heb 13:4; 1Pet 1:17; 1Pet 2:23; Rev 6:10; Rev 14:7), but also
Christ, not only in the great scene depicted in Mt 25:31-46, but also in Mk
8:38; Mk 13:26ff; Mt 7:22 = Lk 13:25-27; Acts 17:31; 2Cor 5:10; Rev 19:11,
whence also the Old Testament conception of "the day of Yahweh" is
changed into "the day of the Lord" (1Cor 5:5; 2Cor 1:14; 1Thess 5:2;
2Pet 3:10). In the sense of the final assize the judgment does not in earlier
Jewish eschatology belong to the functions of the Messiah, except in Enoch
51:3; 55:4; 61:8ff; 62:1ff; 63. Only in the later apocalypses the Messiah
appears as judge (4 Ezra (2Esdras) 13; Apocrypha Baruch 72:2 (compare Sibylline
Oracles 3 286)). In the more realistic, less forensic, sense of an act of
destruction, the judgment forms part of the Messiah's work from the outset, and
is already assigned to Him by the Baptist and still more by Paul (Mt 3:10, 11,
12 = Lk 3:16, 17; 2Thess 2:8, 10, 12). The one representation passes over into
the other. Jesus always claims for Himself the judgment in the strictly
forensic sense. Already in His present state He exercises the right to forgive
sin (Mk 2:5, 10). In the Fourth Gospel, it is true, He denies that His present
activity involves the task of judging (Jn 8:15; Jn 12:47). That this, however,
does not exclude His eschatological judgeship appears from Jn 5:22, 27 (notice
the article in Jn 5:22 "the whole judgment," which proves the
reference to the last day). But even for the present, though not directly, yet
indirectly by His appearance and message, Christ according to John effects a
judgment among men (Jn 8:16; Jn 9:39), which culminates in His passion and
death, the judgment of the world and the Prince of the world (Jn 12:31; Jn
14:30; Jn 16:11). A share of the judgment is assigned to angels and to the
saints (Mt 13:39, 41, 49; Mt 16:27; Mt 24:31; Mt 25:31; 1Thess 3:13; 2Thess
1:7; Jude 1:14f). In regard to the angels this is purely ministerial; of
believers it is affirmed only in 1Cor 6:1-3 that they will have something to do
with the act of judgment itself; passages like Mt 19:28; Mt 20:23; Lk 22:30;
Rev 3:21 do not refer to the judgment proper, but to judging in the sense of
"reigning," and promise certain saints a preeminent position in the
kingdom of glory. The judgment extends to all men, Tyre, Sidon, Sodom, as well
as the Galilean cities (Mt 11:22, 24); all nations (Mt 25:32; Jn 5:29; Acts
17:30, 31; Rom 2:6, 16; 2Cor 5:10). It also includes the evil spirits (1Cor
6:3; 2Pet 2:4; Jude 1:6). It is a judgment according to works, and that not
only in the case of non-believers; of believers also the works will come under
consideration (Mt 25:34ff; 1Cor 4:5; 2Cor 5:10; Rev 22:12). Side by side with
this, however, it is taught already in the Synoptics that the decisive factor
will be the acknowledgment of individuals by Jesus, which in turn depends upon
the attitude assumed by them toward Jesus here, directly or indirectly (Mt
7:23; Mt 19:28; Mt 25:35-45; Mk 8:38). By Paul the principle of judgment
according to works is upheld, not merely hypothetically as a principle
preceding and underlying every soteriological treatment of man by God (Rom 2),
and therefore applying to non-Christians for whose judgment no other standard
is available, but also as remaining in force for Christians, who have already,
under the soteriological regime of grace, received absolute, eternal acquittal
in justification. This raises a twofold problem: (a) why justification does not
render a last judgment superfluous; (b) why the last judgment in case of Christians
saved by grace should be based on works. In regard to (a) it ought to be
remembered that the last judgment differs from justification in that it is not
a private transaction in foro conscientiae, but public, in foro mundi. Hence,
Paul emphasizes this element of publicity (Rom 2:16; 1Cor 3:13; 2Cor 5:10). It
is in accordance with this that God the Father is always the author of
justification, whereas as a rule Christ is represented as presiding at the
assize of the last day. As to (b), because the last judgment is not a mere
private but a public transaction, something more must be taken into account
than that on which the individual eternal destiny may hinge. There can be
disapproval of works and yet salvation (1Cor 3:15). But the trial of works is
necessary for the sake of the vindication of God. In order to be a true
theodicy the judgment must publicly exhibit and announce the complete overthrow
of sin in man, and the complete working out in him of the idea of
righteousness, including not merely his acquittal from the guilt, but also his
deliverance from the power, of sin, not merely his imputed righteousness, but
also his righteousness of life. In order to demonstrate this comprehensively,
the judgment will have to take into account three things: faith (Gal 5:5),
works done in the Christian state, sanctification. Besides this the works of
the Christian appear as the measure of gracious reward (Mt 5:12, 46; Mt 6:1; Mt
10:41, 42; Mt 19:28; Mt 20:1-16; Mt 25:14-45; Mk 9:41; Lk 6:23, 15; 1Cor 3:8,
14; 1Cor 9:17, 18; Col 2:18; Col 3:24; Heb 10:35). These works, however, are
not mechanically or commercially appraised, as in Judaism, for Paul speaks by
preference of "work" in the singular (Rom 2:7, 15; 1Cor 3:13; 1Cor
9:1; Gal 6:4; Eph 4:12; Phil 1:6, 22; 1Thess 1:3; 2Thess 1:11). And this one
organic product of "work" is traced back to the root of faith (1Thess
1:3; 2Thess 1:11 where the genitive Greek [pisteos] is a gen. of origin), and
Paul speaks as a rule not of poiein but of Greek [prassein], i.e. of the practice,
the systematic doing, of that which is good.
The judgment assigns to each individual his eternal
destiny, which is absolute in its character either of blessedness or of
punishment, though admittedly of degrees within these two states. Only two groups
are recognized, those of the condemned and of the saved (Mt 25:33, 14; Jn
5:29); no intermediate group with as yet undetermined destiny anywhere appears.
The degree of guilt is fixed according to the knowledge of the Divine will
possessed in life (Mt 10:15; Mt 11:20-24; Lk 10:12-15; Lk 12:47, 48; Jn 15:22,
24; Rom 2:12; 2Pet 2:20-22). The uniform representation is that the judgment
has reference to what has been done in the embodied state of this life; nowhere
is there any reflection upon the conduct or product of the intermediate state
as contributing to the decision (2Cor 5:10). The state assigned is of endless
duration, hence described as Greek [aionios], "eternal." While this
adjective etymologically need mean no more than "what extends through a
certain eon or period of time," yet its eschatological usage correlates it
everywhere with the "coming age," and, this age being endless in
duration, every state or destiny connected with it partakes of the same
character. It is therefore exegetically impossible to give a relative sense to
such phrases as pur aionion, "eternal fire" (Mt 18:8; Mt 25:41; Jude
1:7), Greek [kolasis aionios], "eternal punishment" (Mt 25:46),Greek
[olethros aionios], "eternal destruction" (2Thess 1:9), Greek [krisis
aionios or krima aionion], "eternal judgment" (Mk 3:29; Heb 6:2).
This is also shown by the figurative representations which unfold the import of
the adjective: the "unquenchable fire" (Mt 3:12), "the
never-dying worm" (Mk 9:43-48), "The smoke of their torment goeth up
for ever and ever" (Rev 14:11), "tormented day and night forever and
ever" (Rev 20:10). The endless duration of the state of punishment is also
required by the absolute eternity of its counterpart, Greek [zoe aionios],
"eternal life" (Mt 25:46). In support of the doctrine of conditional
immortality it has been urged that other terms descriptive of the fate of the
condemned, such as Greek [apoleia], "perdition," Greek [phthora],
"corruption," Greek [olethros], "destruction," Greek
[thanatos], "death," point rather to a cessation of being. This,
however, rests on an unscriptural interpretation of these terms, which
everywhere in the Old Testament and the New Testament designate a state of
existence with an undesirable content, never the pure negation of existence,
just as "life" in Scripture describes a positive mode of being, never
mere existence as such. Perdition, corruption, destruction, death, are
predicated in all such cases of the welfare or the ethical spiritual character
of man, without implying the annihilation of his physical existence. No more
support can be found in the New Testament for the hypothesis of an Greek
[apokatastasis panton], "restoration of all things," i.e. absolute
universalism implying the ultimate salvation of all men. The phrase occurs only
in Acts 3:21, where, however, it has no cosmical reference but relates to the
fulfillment of the promises to Israel. Josephus uses it of the restoration of
the Jews to their land after the Captivity, Philo of the restoration of
inheritances in the year of jubilee (compare Mal 4:6; Mt 17:11; Mk 9:12; Acts
1:6). Absolute universalism has been found in Rom 5:18; 1Cor 15:22, 28; Eph
1:10; Col 1:20, but in all these passages only a cosmical or national
universalism can be found, not the doctrine of the salvation of all
individuals, which latter would bring the statements in question in direct
contradiction to the most explicit deliverances of Paul elsewhere on the
principle of predestination and the eternity of the destiny of the wicked.
Side by side with "the future age," and
characterizing it from a less formal point of view, the phrase "kingdom of
God" designates the consummate state, as it will exist for believers after
the judgment. Jesus, while making the kingdom a present reality, yet continues
to speak of it in accordance with its original eschatological usage as
"the kingdom" which lies in the future (Mt 13:43; Mt 25:34; Mt 26:29;
Mk 9:47; Lk 12:32; Lk 13:28, 29; Lk 21:31). With Paul the phrase bears
preponderatingly an eschatological sense, although occasionally he uses it of
the present state of believers (Rom 14:17; 1Cor 4:20; 1Cor 6:9, 10; 1Cor 15:24,
50; Gal 5:21; Eph 5:5; Col 1:13; Col 4:11; 1Thess 2:12; 2Thess 1:5; 2Tim 4:1,
18). Elsewhere in the New Testament the eschatological use occurs in Heb 12:28;
Jas 2:5; 2Pet 1:11; Rev 11:15. The idea is universalistic, unpolitical, which
does not exclude that certain privileges are spoken of with special reference
to Israel. Although the eschatological kingdom differs from the present kingdom
largely in the fact that it will receive an external, visible embodiment, yet
this does not hinder that even in it the core is constituted by those spiritual
realities and relations which make the present kingdom. Still it will have its outward
form as the doctrine of the resurrection and the regenerated earth plainly
show. Hence, the figures in which Jesus speaks of it, such as eating, drinking,
reclining at table, while not to be taken sensually, should not on the other
hand be interpreted allegorically, as if they stood for wholly internal
spiritual processes: they evidently point to, or at least include, outward
states and activities, of which our life in the senses offers some analogy, but
on a higher plane of which it is at present impossible to form any concrete
conception or to speak otherwise than in figurative language. Equivalent to
"the kingdom" is "life." But, unlike the kingdom,
"life" remains in the Synoptics an exclusively eschatological conception.
It is objectively conceived: the state of blessedness the saints will exist in;
not subjectively as a potency in man or a process of development (Mt 7:14; Mt
18:8, 9; Mt 19:16, 29; Mt 25:46; Mk 10:30). In John "life" becomes a
present state, and in connection with this the idea is subjectivized, it
becomes a process of growth and expansion. Points of contact for this in the
Synoptics may be found in Mt 8:22 (= Lk 9:60); Lk 15:24; Lk 20:38. When this
eschatological life is characterized as aionios, "eternal," the
reference is not exclusively to its eternal duration, but the word has, in
addition to this, a qualitative connotation; it describes the kind of life that
belongs to the consummate state (compare the use of the adjective with other
nouns in this sense: 2Cor 5:1; 2Tim 2:10; Heb 5:9; Heb 9:12, 15; 2Pet 1:11, and
the unfolding of the content of the idea in 1Pet 1:4). With Paul
"life" has sometimes the same eschatological sense (Rom 2:7; Rom
5:17; Tit 1:2; Tit 3:7), but most often it is conceived as already given in the
present state, owing to the close association with the Spirit (Rom 6:11; Rom
7:4, 8, 11; Rom 8:2, 6; Gal 2:19; Gal 6:8; Eph 4:18). In its ultimate analysis
the Pauline conception of "life," as well as that of Jesus, is that
of something dependent on communion with God (Mt 22:32 = Mk 12:27 = Lk 20:38;
Rom 8:6, 7; Eph 4:18). Another Pauline conception associated with the
consummate state is that of doxa, "glory." This glory is everywhere
conceived as a reflection of the glory of God, and it is this that to the mind
of Paul gives it religious value, not the external radiance in which it may
manifest itself as such. Hence, the element of "honor" conjoined to
it (Rom 1:23; Rom 2:7; Rom 8:21; Rom 9:23; 1Cor 15:43). It is not confined to
the physical sphere (2Cor 3:18; 2Cor 4:16, 17). The outward Greek [doxa] is
prized by Paul as a vehicle of revelation, an exponent of the inward state of
acceptance with God. In general Paul conceives of the final state after a
highly theocentric fashion (1Cor 15:28); it is the state of immediate vision of
and perfect communion with God and Christ; the future life alone can bring the
perfected sonship (Rom 6:10; Rom 8:23, 19; compare Lk 20:36; 2Cor 4:4; 2Cor
5:6, 7, 8; 2Cor 13:4; Phil 1:23; Col 2:13; Col 3:3, 1; 1Thess 4:17).
The scene of the consummate state is the new heaven and the
new earth, which are called into being by the eschatological Greek
[palingenesia] "regeneration" (Mt 5:18; Mt 19:28; Mt 24:35; 1Cor
7:31; Heb 1:12; Heb 12:26, 27; 2Pet 3:10; 1Jn 2:17; Rev 21:1, in which last passage,
however, some exegetes understand the city to be a symbol of the church, the
people of God). An annihilation of the substance of the present world is not
taught (compare the comparison of the future world-conflagration with the
Deluge in 2Pet 3:6). The central abode of the redeemed will be in heaven,
although the renewed earth will remain accessible to them and a part of the
inheritance (Mt 5:5; Jn 14:2, 3; Rom 8:18-22; and the closing visions of the
Apocalypse).
In regard to the state of the dead, previously to the Greek
[parousia] and the resurrection, the New Testament is far less explicit than in
its treatment of what belongs to general eschatology. The following points may
here briefly be noted:
(1) The state of death is frequently represented as a
"sleeping," just as the act of dying as a "falling asleep"
(Mt 9:24; Jn 9:4; Jn 11:11; 1Cor 7:39; 1Cor 11:30; 1Cor 15:6, 18, 20, 51;
1Thess 4:13, 15; 2Pet 3:4). This usage, while also purely Greek, rests on the
Old Testament. There is this difference, that in the New Testament (already in
the apocryphal and pseudepigraphical books) the conception is chiefly used with
reference to the righteous dead, and has associated with it the thought of
their blessed awaking in the resurrection, whereas in the Old Testament it is
indiscriminately applied to all the dead and without such connotation. With
Paul the word always occurs of believers. The representation applies not to the
"soul" or "spirit," so that a state of unconsciousness until
the resurrection would be implied. It is predicated of the person, and the
point of comparison is that as one who sleeps is not alive to his surroundings,
so the dead are no longer en rapport with this earthly life. Whatever may have
been the original implications of the word, it plainly had become long before
the New Testament period a figurative mode of speech, just as Greek [egeirein],
"to wake," was felt to be a figurative designation of the act of the
resurrection. Because the dead are asleep to our earthly life, which is
mediated through the body, it does not follow that they are asleep in every
other relation, asleep to the life of the other world, that their spirits are
unconscious. Against the unconsciousness of the dead compare Lk 16:23; Lk 23:43;
Jn 11:25, 26; Acts 7:59; 1Cor 15:8; Phil 1:23; Rev 6:9-11; Rev 7:9. Some have
held that the sleep was for Paul a euphemism employed in order to avoid the
terms "death" and "to die," which the apostle restricted to
Christ. 1Thess 4:16 shows that this is unfounded.
(2) The New Testament speaks of the departed after an
anthropomorphic fashion as though they were still possessed of bodily organs
(Lk 16:23, 14; Rev 6:11; Rev 7:9). That no inference can be drawn from this in
favor of the hypothesis of an intermediate body appears from the fact that God
and angels are spoken of in the same manner, and also from passages which more
precisely refer to the dead as "souls," "spirits" (Lk
23:46; Acts 7:59; Heb 12:23; 1Pet 3:19; Rev 6:9; Rev 20:4).
(3) The New Testament nowhere encourages the living to seek
converse with the dead. Its representation of the dead as "sleeping"
with reference to the earthly life distinctly implies that such converse would
be abnormal and in so far discountenances it, without explicitly affirming its
absolute impossibility. Not even the possibility of the dead for their part
taking knowledge of our earthly life is affirmed anywhere. Heb 12:1 does not
necessarily represent the Old Testament saints as "witnesses" of our
race of faith in the sense of spectators in the literal sense, but perhaps in
the figurative sense, that we ought to feel, having in memory their example, as
if the ages of the past and their historic figures were looking down upon us
(Lk 16:29; Acts 8:9; Acts 13:6ff; Acts 19:13ff).
(4) As to the departed saints themselves, it is intimated
that they have mutual knowledge of one another in the intermediate state,
together with memory of facts and conditions of the earthly life (Lk 16:9,
19-31). Nowhere, however, is it intimated that this interest of the departed
saints in our earthly affairs normally expresses itself in any act of
intercession, not even of intercession spontaneously proffered on their part.
(5) The New Testament does not teach that there is any
possibility of a fundamental change in moral or spiritual character in the
intermediate state. The doctrine of a so-called "second probation"
finds in it no real support. The only passages that can with some semblance of
warrant be appealed to in this connection are 1Pet 3:19-21 and 1Pet 4:6. For
the exegesis of the former passage, which is difficult and much disputed,
compare SPIRITS IN PRISON. Here it may
simply be noted that the context is not favorable to the view that an extension
of the opportunity of conversion beyond death is implied; the purport of the
whole passage points in the opposite direction, the salvation of the
exceedingly small number of eight of the generation of Noah being emphasized
(1Pet 3:20). Besides this it would be difficult to understand why this
exceptional opportunity should have been granted to this peculiar group of the
dead, since the contemporaries of Noah figure in Scripture as examples of
extreme wickedness. Even if the idea of a gospel-preaching with soteriological
purpose were actually found here, it would not furnish an adequate basis for
building upon it the broad hypothesis of a second probation for all the dead in
general or for those who have not heard the gospel in this life. This latter
view the passage is especially ill fitted to support, because the generation of
Noah had had the gospel preached to them before death. There is no intimation
that the transaction spoken of was repeated or continued indefinitely. As to
the second passage (1Pet 4:6), this must be taken by itself and in connection
with its own context. The assumption that the sentence "the gospel (was)
preached even to the dead" must have its meaning determined by the earlier
passage in 1Pet 3:19-21, has exercised an unfortunate influence upon the
exegesis. Possibly the two passages had no connection in the mind of the
author. For explaining the reference to "the dead" the connection
with the preceding verse is fully sufficient. It is there stated that Christ is
"ready to judge the living and the dead." "The living and the
dead" are those who will be alive and dead at the Greek [parousia]. To
both the gospel was preached, that Christ might be the judge of both. But that
the gospel was preached to the latter in the state of death is in no way
indicated. On the contrary the telic clause, "that they might be judged
according to men in the flesh," shows that they heard the gospel during
their lifetime, for the judgment according to men in the flesh that has
befallen them is the judgment of physical death. If a close connection between
the passage in 1Pet 3 and that in chapter 4 did exist, this could only serve to
commend the exegesis which finds in the earlier passage a gospel-preaching to
the contemporaries of Noah during their lifetime, since, on that view, it
becomes natural to identify the judgment in the flesh with the Deluge.
(6) The New Testament, while representing the state of the
dead before the Greek [parousia] as definitely fixed, nevertheless does not
identify it, either in degree of blessedness or punishment, with the final
state which follows upon the resurrection. Although there is no warrant for
affirming that the state of death is regarded as for believers a positively
painful condition, as has been mistakenly inferred from 1Cor 11:30; 1Thess
4:13, nevertheless Paul shrinks from it as from a relatively undesirable state,
since it involves "nakedness" for the soul, which condition, however,
does not exclude a relatively high degree of blessedness in fellowship with
Christ (2Cor 5:2-4, 6, 8; Phil 1:23). In the same manner a difference in the
degree or mode of punishment between the intermediate state and the age to come
is plainly taught. For on the one hand the eternal punishment is related to
persons in the body (Mt 10:28), and on the other hand it is assigned to a
distinct place, Gehenna, which is never named in connection with the torment of
the intermediate state. This term occurs in Mt 5:22, 29, 30; Mt 10:28 = Lk
12:5; Lk 18:9; Lk 23:33; Mk 9:43, 15, 47; Jas 3:6. Its opposite is the
eschatological kingdom of God (Mk 9:47). The term abussos differs from it in
that it is associated with the torment of evil spirits (Lk 8:31; Rom 10:7; Rev
9:1, 2; Rev 11:7; Rev 20:1), and in regard to it no such clear distinction
between a preliminary and final punishment seems to be drawn (compare also the
verb Greek [tartaroun], "to bind in Tartarus"; of evil spirits in
2Pet 2:4). Where the sphere of the intermediate state is locally conceived,
this is done by means of the term Greek [Hades], which is the equivalent of the
Old Testament Hebrew [She'ol]. The passages where this occurs are Mt 11:23; Mt
16:18; Lk 16:23; Acts 2:27, 31; 1Cor 15:55 (where others read
"death"); Rev 1:18; Rev 6:8; Rev 20:13, 14). These passages should
not be interpreted on the basis of the Greek classical usage, but in the light
of the Old Testament doctrine about Hebrew [She'ol]. Some of them plainly
employ the word in the non-local sense of the state of death (Mt 16:18;
possibly Acts 2:27, 31; 1Cor 15:55 (personified); Rev 1:18; Rev 6:8
(personified); Rev 20:13 (personified)). The only passage where the conception
is local is Lk 16:23, and this occurs in a parable, where aside from the
central point in comparison, no purpose to impart topographical knowledge
concerning the world beyond death can be assumed, but the imagery is simply
that which was popularly current. But, even if the doctrine of Greek [Hades] as
a place distinct from Greek [Gehenna] should be found here, the terms in which
it is spoken of, as place of torment for Dives, prove that the conception is
not that of a general abode of neutral character, where without blessedness or
pain the dead as a joint-company await the last judgment, which would first
assign them to their separate eternal habitations. The parable plainly teaches,
whether Hades be local and distinct from Gehenna or not, that the
differentiation between blessedness and punishment in its absolute character
(Lk 16:26) is begun in it and does not first originate at the judgment (see
further,HADES).
LITERATURE.
Besides the articles on the several topics in the Bible
Dictionaries and in Cremer's Lexicon of New Testament Greek, and the
corresponding chapters in the handbooks on New Testament Theology, the
following works and articles may be consulted: Bousset, Die Religion des
Judenthums 2, 1906, especially 233-346; id, Der Antichrist in der
Ueberlieferung des Judenthums, des New Testament und der alten Kirche, 1895;
Bruston, La vie future d'apres Paul, 1895; Charles, Eschatology Hebrew, Jewish
and Christian: A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life, 1899;
Cremer, Ueber den Zustand nach dem Tode 3, 1892; Grimm, "Ueber die Stelle
1 Kor 15:20-28," ZWT, 1873; Haupt, Die eschatologischen Aussagen Jesu in
den synoptischen Evangelien, 1895; Kabisch, Eschatologie des Paulus in ihren
Zusammenhangen mit dem Gesamtbegriff des Paulinismus, 1893; Kennedy, Paul's
Conceptions of the Last Things, 1904; Kliefoth, Christliche Eschatologie, 1886;
Klopper, "Zur Paulinischen Lehre von der Auferstehung: Auslegung von 2Cor
5:1-6," JDT, 1862 (the author modified his views in his commentary on
2Cor); Kostlin, "Die Lehre des Apostels Paulus von der Auferstehung,"
JDT, 1877; Luthardt, Lehre von den letzten Dingen 3, 1885; Muirhead, The
Eschatology of Jesus, 1904; Oesterley, The Doctrine of the Last Things, 1908;
Philippi, Die biblische und kirchliche Lehre vom Antichrist, 1877; Rinck, Vom
Zustande nach dem Tode, 1885; Salmond, The Christian Doctrine of Immortality 5,
1901; Schwally, Das Leben nach dem Tode, 1892; Sharman, The Teaching of Jesus
about the Future According to the Synoptic Gospels, 1909; Stahelin, "Zur
Paulinischen Eschatologie," JDT, 1874; Teichmann, Die Paulinischen
Vorstellungen von Auferstehung und Gericht, 1896; Volz, Judische Eschatologie
von Daniel bis Akiba, 1903; Waitz, "Ueber 2Cor 5:1-4," JPT, 1882;
Wetzel, "Ueber 2Cor 5:1-4," SK, 1886; Wendt, Die Begriffe Fleisch und
Geist im biblischen Sprachgebrauch, 1878.
Definition Written By: Geerhardus Vos
The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
hel (see SHEOL;
HADES;GEHENNA):
The English word, from a Teutonic root meaning "to
hide" or "cover," had originally the significance of the world
of the dead generally, and in this sense is used by Chaucer, Spenser, etc., and
in the Creed ("He descended into hell"); compare the English Revised
Version Preface. Now the word has come to mean almost exclusively the place of
punishment of the lost or finally impenitent; the place of torment of the
wicked. In the King James Version of the Scriptures, it is the rendering
adopted in many places in the Old Testament for the Hebrew word Hebrew [she'ol]
(in 31 out of 65 occurrences of that word it is so translated), and in all
places, save one (1Cor 15:55) in the New Testament, for the Greek word Greek
[Hades] (this word occurs 11Times; in 10 of these it is translated
"hell"; 1Cor 15:55 reads "grave," with "hell" in
the margin). In these cases the word has its older general meaning, though in
Lk 16:23 (parable of Rich Man and Lazarus) it is specially connected with a
place of "torment," in contrast with the "Abraham's bosom"
to which Lazarus is taken (Lk 16:22).
In the above cases the Revised Version (British and
American) has introduced changes, replacing "hell" by
"Sheol" in the passages in the Old Testament (the English Revised
Version retains "hell" in Isa 14:9, 15; the American Standard Revised
Version makes no exception), and by "Hades" in the passages in the
New Testament (see under these words).
Besides the above uses, and more in accordance with the
modern meaning, the word "hell" is used in the New Testament in the
King James Version as the equivalent of Gehenna (12 times; Mt 5:22, 29; Mt 10:28,
etc.). the Revised Version (British and American) in these cases puts
"Gehenna" in the margin. Originally the Valley of Hinnom, near
Jerusalem, Gehenna became among the Jews the synonym for the place of torment
in the future life (the "Gehenna of fire," Mt 5:22, etc.;
seeGEHENNA).
In yet one other passage in the New Testament (2Pet 2:4),
"to cast down to hell" is used (the King James Version and the
Revised Version (British and American)) to represent the Greek [tartaroo],
("to send into Tartarus"). Here it stands for the place of punishment
of the fallen angels: "spared not angels when they sinned, but cast them
down to hell, and committed them to pits (or chains) of darkness" (compare
Jude 1:6; but also Mt 25:41). Similar ideas are found in certain of the Jewish
apocalyptic books (Book of Enoch, Book of Jubilees, Apocrypha Baruch, with
apparent reference to Gen 6:1-4; compareESCHATOLOGY, OF THE OT).
On theological aspect, see PUNISHMENT, EVERLASTING. For
literature, see references in above-named arts., and compare article
"Hell" by Dr. D. S. Salmond in HDB.
Definition Written By: James Orr
The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
ga-hen'-a (Greek
[geenna] (see Grimm-Thayer, under the word)): Gehenna is a transliteration from
the Aramaic form of the Hebrew [ge-hinnom], "valley of Hinnom." This
latter form, however, is rare in the Old Testament, the prevailing name being
"the valley of the son of Hinnom." Septuagint usually translates;
where it transliterates the form is different from Gehenna and varies. In the
New Testament the correct form is Greek [Gee'nna] with the accent on the
penult, not Greek [Ge'enna]. There is no reason to assume that Hinnom is other
than a plain patronymic, although it has been proposed to find in it the
corruption of the name of an idol (EB, II, 2071). In the New Testament (King
James Version margin) Gehenna occurs in Mt 5:22, 29, 30; Mt 10:28; Mt 18:9; Mt
23:15, 33; Mk 9:43, 15, 47; Lk 12:5; Jas 3:6. In all of these it designates the
place of eternal punishment of the wicked, generally in connection with the
final judgment. It is associated with fire as the source of torment. Both body
and soul are cast into it. This is not to be explained on the principle that
the New Testament speaks metaphorically of the state after death in terms of
the body; it presupposes the resurrection. In the King James Version and the
Revised Version (British and American) Gehenna is rendered by "hell"
(see ESCHATOLOGY, OF THE NT). That "the valley of Hinnom" became the
technical designation for the place of final punishment was due to two causes.
In the first place the valley had been the seat of the idolatrous worship of
Molech, to whom children were immolated by fire (2Ch 28:3; 2Ch 33:6). Secondly,
on account of these practices the place was defiled by King Josiah (2Ki 23:10),
and became in consequence associated in prophecy with the judgment to be
visited upon the people (Jer 7:32). The fact, also, that the city's offal was
collected there may have helped to render the name synonymous with extreme
defilement. Topographically the identification of the valley of Hinnom is still
uncertain. It has been in turn identified with the depression on the western
and southern side of Jerusalem, with the middle valley, and with the valley to
the E. Compare EB, II, 2071; DCG, I, 636; RE3, VI.
Definition Written By: Geerhardus Vos
The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
she'-ol (Hebrew
[she'ol]):
1. The Name
2. The Abode of the Dead
(1) Not a State of Unconsciousness
(2) Not Removed from God's Jurisdiction
(3) Relation to Immortality
3. Post-canonical Period
This word is often translated in the King James Version
"grave" (e.g. Gen 37:35; 1Sam 2:6; Job 7:9; Job 14:13; Ps 6:5; Ps
49:14; Isa 14:11, etc.) or "hell" (e.g. Dt 32:22; Ps 9:17; Ps 18:5;
Isa 14:9; Am 9:2, etc.); in 3 places by "pit" (Nu 16:30, 33; Job
17:16). It means really the unseen world, the state or abode of the dead, and
is the equivalent of the Greek [Haides], by which word it is translated in
Septuagint. The English Revisers have acted somewhat inconsistently in leaving
"grave" or "pit" in the historical books and putting
"Sheol" in the margin, while substituting "Sheol" in the
poetical writings, and putting "grave" in the margin
("hell" is retained in Isa 14). Compare their "Preface."
The American Revisers more properly use "Sheol" throughout. The
etymology of the word is uncertain. A favorite derivation is from Hebrew
[sha'al], "to ask" (compare Prov 1:12; Prov 27:20; Prov 30:15, 16;
Isa 5:14; Hab 2:5); others prefer the Hebrew [sha'al], "to be
hollow." The Babylonians are said to have a similar word Sualu, though
this is questioned by some.
Into Sheol, when life is ended, the dead are gathered in
their tribes and families. Hence, the expression frequently occurring in the
Pentateuch, "to be gathered to one's people," "to go to one's
fathers," etc. (Gen 15:15; Gen 25:8, 17; Gen 49:33; Nu 20:24, 28; Nu 31:2;
Dt 32:50; Dt 34:5). It is figured as an under-world (Isa 44:23; Ezek 26:20,
etc.), and is described by other terms, as "the pit" (Job 33:24; Ps
28:1; Ps 30:3; Prov 1:12; Isa 38:18, etc.),
ABADDON (which see) or Destruction (Job 26:6; Job 28:22; Prov 15:11),
the place of "silence" (Ps 94:17; Ps 115:17), "the land of
darkness and the shadow of death" (Job 10:21f). It is, as the antithesis
of the living condition, the synonym for everything that is gloomy, inert,
insubstantial (the abode of Rephaim, "shades," Job 26:5;, Prov 2:18;
Prov 21:16; Isa 14:9; Isa 26:14). It is a "land of forgetfulness,"
where God's "wonders" are unknown (Ps 88:10-12). There is no
remembrance or praise of God (Ps 6:5; Ps 88:12; Ps 115:17, etc.). In its
darkness, stillness, powerlessness, lack of knowledge and inactivity, it is a
true abode of death (seeDEATH); hence, is regarded by the living with
shrinking, horror and dismay (Ps 39:13; Isa 38:17-19), though to the weary and
troubled it may present the aspect of a welcome rest or sleep (Job 3:17-22; Job
14:12f). The Greek idea of Hades was not dissimilar.
Yet it would be a mistake to infer, because of these strong
and sometimes poetically heightened contrasts to the world of the living, that
Sheol was conceived of as absolutely a place without consciousness, or some dim
remembrance of the world above. This is
not the case. Necromancy rested on the
idea that there was some communication between the world above and the world
below (Dt 18:11); a Samuel could be summoned from the dead (1Sam 28:11-15);
Sheol from beneath was stirred at the descent of the king of Babylon (Isa
14:9ff). The state is rather that of
slumbrous semi-consciousness and enfeebled existence from which in a partial
way the spirit might temporarily be aroused.
Such conceptions, it need hardly be said, did not rest on revelation,
but were rather the natural ideas formed of the future state, in contrast with
life in the body, in the absence of revelation.
It would be yet more erroneous to speak with Dr. Charles
(Eschatology, 35 ff) of Sheol as a region "quite independent of Yahwe, and
outside the sphere of His rule."
"Sheol is naked before God," says Job, "and Abaddon hath
no covering" (Job 26:6). "If
I make my bed in Sheol," says the Psalmist, "behold thou art
there" (Ps 139:8). The wrath of
Yahweh burns unto the lowest Sheol (Dt 32:22).
As a rule there is little sense of moral distinctions in the Old
Testament representations of Sheol, yet possibly these are not altogether
wanting (on the above and others points in theology of Sheol).
See ESCHATOLOGY, OF THE OT.
To apprehend fully the Old Testament conception of Sheol one
must view it in its relation to the idea of death as something unnatural and
abnormal for man; a result of sin. The
believer's hope for the future, so far as this had place, was not prolonged
existence in Sheol, but deliverance from it and restoration to new life in
God's presence (Job 14:13-15; Job 19:25-27; Ps 16:10, 11; Ps 17:15; Ps 49:15;
Ps 73:24-26; see IMMORTALITY; ESCHATOLOGY, OF THE OT;RESURRECTION). Dr. Charles probably goes too far in
thinking of Sheol in Psalms 49 and Psa 73 as "the future abode of the
wicked only; heaven as that of the righteous" (op. cit., 74); but
different destinies are clearly indicated.
There is no doubt, at all events, that in the postcanonical
Jewish literature (the Apocrypha and apocalyptic writings) a very considerable
development is manifest in the idea of Sheol. Distinction between good and bad
in Israel is emphasized; Sheol becomes for certain classes an intermediate
state between death and resurrection; for the wicked and for Gentiles it is
nearly a synonym for Greek [Gehenna] (hell). For the various views, with
relevant literature on the whole subject, see ESCHATOLOGY, OF THE NT; also
DEATH; HADES; HELL, etc.
Definition Written By: James Orr
The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
ha'-dez (Greek
[Haides], Greek [haides], "not to be seen"): Hades, Greek originally
Greek [Haidou], in genitive, "the house of Hades," then, as
nominative, designation of the abode of the dead itself. The word occurs in the
New Testament in Mt 11:23 (parallel Lk 10:15); Mt 16:18; Lk 16:23; Acts 2:27,
31; Rev 1:18; Rev 6:8; Rev 20:13f. It is also found in Textus Receptus of the
New Testament 1Cor 15:55, but here the correct reading (Tischendorf, Westcott
and Hort, The New Testament in Greek, the Revised Version (British and
American)) is probably Greek [Thanate], "O Death," instead of Greek
[Haide], "O Hades." the King James Version renders "Hades"
by "hell" in all instances except 1Cor 15:55, where it puts
"grave" (margin "hell") in dependence on Hos 13:14. the
Revised Version (British and American) everywhere has "Hades."
In the Septuagint Hades is the standing equivalent for
Sheol, but also translates other terms associated with death and the state
after it. The Greek conception of Hades was that of a locality receiving into
itself all the dead, but divided into two regions, one a place of torment, the
other of blessedness. This conception should not be rashly transferred to the
New Testament, for the latter stands not under the influence of Greek pagan
belief, but gives a teaching and reflects a belief which model their idea of
Hades upon the Old Testament through the Septuagint. The Old Testament Sheol,
while formally resembling the Greek Hades in that it is the common receptacle
of all the dead, differs from it, on the one hand, by the absence of a clearly
defined division into two parts, and, on the other hand, by the emphasis placed
on its association with death and the grave as abnormal facts following in the
wake of sin. The Old Testament thus concentrates the partial light it throws on
the state after death on the negative, undesirable side of the prospect apart
from redemption. When in the progress of Old Testament revelation the state
after death begins to assume more definite features, and becomes more sharply
differentiated in dependence on the religious and moral issue of the present
life this is not accomplished in the canonical writings (otherwise in the
apocalyptic literature) by dividing Sheol into two compartments, but by holding
forth to the righteous the promise of deliverance from Sheol, so that the
latter becomes more definitely outlined as a place of evil and punishment.
The New Testament passages mark a distinct stage in this
process, and there is, accordingly, a true basis in Scripture for the
identification in a certain aspect of Sheol -- Hades -- with hell as reflected
in the King James Version. The theory according to which Hades is still in the
New Testament the undifferentiated provisional abode of all the dead until the
day of judgment, with the possibility of ultimate salvation even for those of
its inmates who have not been saved in this life, is neither in harmony with
the above development nor borne out by the facts of New Testament usage. That
dead believers abide in a local Hades cannot be proven from 1Thess 4:16; 1Cor
15:23, for these passages refer to the grave and the body, not to a
gathering-place of the dead. On the other hand Lk 23:43; 2Cor 5:6-8; Phil 1:23;
Rev 6:9; Rev 7:9ff; Rev 15:2ff teach that the abode of believers immediately
after death is with Christ and God.
It is, of course, a different matter, when Hades, as not
infrequently already the Old Testament Sheol, designates not the place of the
dead but the state of death or disembodied existence. In this sense even the
soul of Jesus was in Hades according' to Peter's statement (Acts 2:27, 31 -- on
the basis of Ps 16:10). Here the abstract sense is determined by the parallel
expression, "to see corruption" None the less from a comparatively
early date this passage has been quoted in support of the doctrine of a local
descent of Christ into Hades.
The same abstract meaning is indicated for Rev 20:13. Death
and Hades are here represented as delivering up the dead on the eve of the
final judgment. If this is more than a poetic duplication of terms, Hades will
stand for the personified state of death, Death for the personified cause of
this state. The personification appears plainly from Rev 20:14: "Death and
Hades were cast into the lake of fire." In the number of these
"dead" delivered up by Hades, believers are included, because, even
on the chiliastic interpretation of Rev 20:4-6, not all the saints share in the
first resurrection, but only those "beheaded for the testimony of Jesus,
and for the word of God," i.e. the martyrs. A similar personifying
combination of Death and Hades occurs in Rev 6:8 ("a pale horse: and he
that sat upon him his name was Death; and Hades followed with him"). In
Rev 1:18, on the other hand, Death and Hades are represented as prisons from
which Christ, in virtue of His own resurrection, has the power to deliver, a representation
which again implies that in some, not necessarily local, sense believers also
are kept in Hades.
In distinction from these passages when the abstract
meaning prevails and the local conception is in abeyance, the remaining
references are more or less locally conceived. Of these Lk 16:23 is the only
one which might seem to teach that recipients of salvation enter after death
into Hades as a place of abode. It has been held that Hades is here the
comprehensive designation of the locality where the dead reside, and is divided
into two regions, "the bosom of Abraham" and the place of torment, a
representation for which Jewish parallels can be quoted, aside from its
resemblance to the Greek bisection of Hades. Against this view, however, it may
be urged, that if "the bosom of Abraham" were conceived as one of the
two divisions of Hades, the other division would have been named with equal
concreteness in connection with Dives. In point of fact, the distinction is not
between "the bosom of Abraham" and another place, as both included in
Hades, but between "the bosom of Abraham" and Hades as antithetical
and exclusive. The very form of the description of the experience of Dives:
"In Hades he lifted up his eyes, being in torments," leads us to
associate Hades as such with pain and punishment. The passage, therefore, does
not prove that the saved are after death in Hades. In further estimating its
bearing upon the problem of the local conditions of the disembodied life after
death, the parabolic character of the representation must be taken into
account. The parable is certainly not intended to give us topographical
information about the realm of the dead, although it presupposes that there is
a distinct place of abode for the righteous and wicked respectively.
The two other passages where Hades occurs in the teaching
of our Lord (Mt 11:23 parallel Lk 10:15; and Mt 16:18) make a metaphorical use
of the conception, which, however, is based on the local sense. In the former
utterance it is predicted of Capernaum that it shall in punishment for its
unbelief "go down unto Hades." As in the Old Testament Sheol is a
figure for the greatest depths known (Dt 32:22; Isa 7:11; Isa 57:9; Job 11:8;
Job 26:6), this seems to be a figure for the extreme of humiliation to which
that city was to be reduced in the course of history. It is true, Mt 11:24,
with its mention of the day of judgment, might seem to favor an eschatological
reference to the ultimate doom of the unbelieving inhabitants, but the usual restriction
of Hades to the punishment of the intermediate state (see below) is against
this.
In the other passage, Mt 16:18, Jesus declares that the
gates of Hades shall not katischuein the church He intends to build. The verb
katischuein may be rendered, "to overpower" or "to
surpass." If the former be adopted, the figure implied is that of Hades as
a stronghold of the power of evil or death from which warriors stream forth to
assail the church as the realm of life. On the other rendering there is no
reference to any conflict between Hades and the church, the point of comparison
being merely the strength of the church, the gates of Hades, i.e. the realm of
death, serving in common parlance as a figure of the greatest conceivable
strength, because they never allow to escape what has once entered through
them.
The above survey of the passages tends to show that Hades,
where it is locally conceived, is not a provisional receptacle for all the
dead, but plainly associated with the punishment of the wicked. Where it comes
under consideration for the righteous there is nothing to indicate a local
sense. On 1Pet 3:19; 1Pet 4:6 (where, however, the word "Hades" does
not occur), see articles ESCHATOLOGY, OF THE NT; SPIRITS IN PRISON.
The element of truth in theory of the provisional character
of Hades lies in this, that the New Testament never employs it in connection
with the final state of punishment, as subsequent to the last judgment. For
this GEHENNA (which see) and other terms
are used. Dives is represented as being in Hades immediately after his death
and while his brethren are still in this present life. Whether the implied
differentiation between stages of punishment, depending obviously on the
difference between the disembodied and reembodied state of the lost, also
carries with itself a distinction between two places of punishment, in other
words whether Hades and Gehenna are locally distinct, the evidence is scarcely
sufficient to determine. The New Testament places the emphasis on the
eschatological developments at the end, and leaves many things connected with
the intermediate state in darkness.
Definition Written By: Geerhardus Vos
The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia