Towards a more realized eschatology

     I was recently talking with two friends from my seminary (Nashotah House), postulants for the priesthood, and I mentioned that of all that I’ve learned in my classes I think that the perspective that most changed for me was my view of eschatology and they agreed. (I know this seems far from our Theology of the Body discussion but it actually does relate—I just have to lay this background first.)

     Eschatology is the study of “last things.”  So what changes with this shift? If you realize that non-Christians are living under judgment now rather than judgment being just something they will receive at their deaths, I think it gives you much more compassion for them. And it also changes the way you read the scriptures on eternal life among many others.

     New Testament scholar Richard Hays in his book, The Moral Vision of the New Testament, especially sees these ideas in the gospel of John. According to Hays, though there remains a “last day,” John’s eschatological vision is that “by our response to the Word we come under judgment or enter into life” (page 150). Judgment is happening now and the one who knows Jesus “already possesses eschatological life in all its fullness” (page 150).  In John time blurs and the past and “the experiences of the community need not be sharply distinguished from the events of Jesus’ life; the past and the present can be superimposed upon one another as a two-level drama, so that the story of Jesus becomes the story of the community and vice versa” (page 153).

     Here’s two of the verses from John that Hays mentions to elaborate:

Jesus says to Nicodemus, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.” John 3:16-20 

Jesus also said this to the Jews, “Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.” John 5:25

Raymond Brown in his Introduction to the Gospel of John also sees John as having a more realized eschatological view:

In many ways, John is the best NT example of realized eschatology. God has been revealed in Jesus in a definitive form. If one points to OT passages that seem to imply a coming of God in glory, the Prologue (1:14) answers, “We have seen his glory.” If one asks where is the judgment that marks God’s final intervention, John 3:19 answers, “now the judgment is this: the light has come into the world.” In a figurative way, Matt 25:31-46 describes the apocalyptic Son of Man coming in glory and sitting on the throne of judgment to separate the good and the bad. But for John the presence of Jesus in the world as the light separates people into those who are walking in darkness, hating the light, and those who come to the light. All through the Gospel, Jesus provokes self-judgment as people line up for or against him; truly his coming is a crisis in the root sense of that word, where it reflect the Greek krisis or “judgment.” Those who refuse to believe are already condemned (3:18), while those who have faith do not come under condemnation (5:24). Even the reward is realized. For the Synoptics (that is Matthew, Mark, and Luke) “eternal life” is something that one receives at the final judgment or in a future age (Mark 10:30; Matt 18:8-9), but for John it is a present possibility: “The one who hears my words and has faith in Him who sent me possesses eternal life…he has passed from death to life” (5:24). For Luke (6:35; 20:36) divine sonship is a reward of the future life; for John (1:12) it is a gift granted here on earth. (pages 239-240).

Brown then goes on to discuss passages in John that exhibit “a Johannine liking for joined contraries, e.g., believers may die or never die at all (11:25-26); God has been glorified and will be glorified (12:28; 13:31).” But then also there are “passages in John that seem to reflect a purely future eschatology” (page 240). So Brown recognizes, “within Jesus’ own message there was a tension between realized and final eschatology” (page 242).

     So with this shifted perspective, I have started to look at passages that I once only saw as happening on the final day as having already begun now. I still believe of course that there will be a day when our bodies are resurrected, but eternal life is possible now in Christ. Hallejujah!