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225 8 The Living Presence of the Parousia My life, I will not let you go except you bless me, but then I will let you go. —Karen Blixen1 Let us not resist the first coming so that the second may not startle us. —Augustine2 When Will the Parousia Take Place? As we saw earlier on, the moment when the Parousia takes place will depend, to some degree, on humans’ correspondence (or lack of it) to God’s gifts and inspiration .3 In Matthew 23:39 we read: “For I tell you, you will not see me again until you say ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’” This does not mean, “When the Messiah comes, his people will bless him,” but rather the opposite , “When his people bless him, the Messiah will come.”4 This declaration is confirmed by Jesus’ admonition: “When the Son of man comes, will he find faith on earth?” (Lk 18:8). Nonetheless, the return of the Lord Jesus in glory is fundamentally an act of God, an act of divine power. God is the only Sovereign, the only Lord, the only One in a position to decide when humanity is truly prepared, the only One capable of raising up the dead and judging humans. Hence, “of that day or that hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father” (Mk 13:32; cf. Mt 24:36). As he ascended into heaven, Jesus said to the disciples: “it is not for you to know times and seasons which the Father has fixed by his own authority” (Acts 1:7). And Augustine comments: “Whoever claims that the Lord will come soon, he is speaking in a way that may be dangerously mistaken.”5 “For you yourselves know well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night,” Paul writes to the Thessalonians. “When people say, ‘There is peace and 1. I.Dinesen (ps. Karen Blixen), Out of Africa—Shadows on the Grass (New York: Vintage International , 1989), 265. 2. Augustine, Enn. in Ps., 95:14. 3. See pp. 60–61. 4. See ch. 2, nn. 108–10. 5. Augustine, Ep. 199, de fine saeculi. 226 The Stimulus of Hope security’, then sudden destruction will come upon them as travail comes upon a woman with child, and there will be no escape” (1 Thes 5:2–3). There is much to be said for the position of Bonaventure, who suggested we do not know the hour of final judgment because we do not really need it to ensure our salvation.6 Schweitzer and the “thoroughgoing” eschatology school took it that the New Testament’s vagueness and imprecision regarding the end of the world and the return of the Messiah indicated that Jesus was unaware of his mission and mistaken as regards his identity.7 It would seem rather that this vagueness , such as it is, underpins an important theological statement: only God knows when the time is ripe for the harvest (Mt 3:12); and he will send his Son from his right hand to judge the world when he sees fit, neither sooner nor later. “Let both [wheat and weeds] grow until the harvest; and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, ‘Gather the weeds . . .’” (Mt 13:30). However, it is clear from Scripture and from the experience of Christian life, that the power and presence of the Parousia already makes itself felt here on earth before the definitive coming of the Lord Jesus will take place. As we saw earlier, Christian eschatology is not entirely future-bound; it is also, though not exclusively, a “realized” eschatology.8 Salvation won by Christ is like a living ferment , constantly enlivened by the Holy Spirit, that acts and moves and changes human hearts and lives. For Augustine, a key image for the economy of salvation lies in the pilgrim character of the Church, as it hopes and longs for its full realization . The Church, he says, “like a stranger in a foreign land, presses forward amid the persecutions of the world and the consolations of God.”9 Maximus the Confessor explains that in terms of God’s approach to us, the “end of the ages” has already come, but in terms of our approach to God, it is still ahead of us, and so far is present only in “types and patterns” through grace.10 In this chapter we shall...

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