Jimmy Akin - 20 Answers: The End Times (20 Answers Series from Catholic Answers)

20 Answers

g

The End Times

Jimmy Akin

20 Answers: The End Times

Jimmy Akin

2020 Catholic Answers

All rights reserved. Except for quotations, no part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, uploading to the Internet, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher.

Published by Catholic Answers, Inc.

2020 Gillespie Way

El Cajon, California 92020

1-888-291-8000 orders

619-387-0042 fax

catholic.com

Printed in the United States of America

978-1-68357-213-8

978-1-68357-214-5 Kndle

978-1-68357-215-2 ePub

Introduction

The end times. The last days. The end of the world. People have wondered about these for thousands of years.

Some religions have the idea that history is an endless series of cycles, just as day follows night, one year follows another, and generations are born, grow up, and pass from the scene. But the Bible teaches something else. Although there are cycles in the world, they dont endlessly repeat.

Instead, history follows a definite course. It tells a story with a beginning, a middle, and an end. The beginning of the story is creation: In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth (Gen. 1:1). After man fell into sin, God began working to redeem him. He made a covenant with the patriarch Abraham, from whom came Gods chosen people, Israel. Then, when the time had fully come, God sent forth his Son (Gal. 4:4), and Jesus Christ performed the supreme act of redemption by his death on the cross. After rising from the dead, he ascended into heaven and sent the Holy Spirit to empower his followers to spread his message throughout the world.

These events are not part of a cycle that keeps repeating. They are unique parts of Gods plan of the ages. And that plan has an end point. God promised that Jesus would return and that the dead would be raised. Following the final judgment, there will be a new heaven and a new earth (Rev. 21:1), where God will dwell with his people and wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain any more, for the former things have passed away (Rev. 21:4).

History is thus heading toward its end point, and Christians have always wondered how close they might be to that end. There is even a special branch of theology devoted to the subject: eschatology (Greek, eschatos last, logos teaching), or the study of the last things .

Eschatology has two parts. It is called individual or personal eschatology when it deals with the last things that individual people experience: the four last things (i.e., death, judgment, hell, and heavenwith purgatory thrown in as a bonus topic).

The other partwhich is our subjectis called universal , cosmic , or corporate eschatology, and it deals with the last things the world as a whole will experience. It involves the end times, Christs Second Coming, and what happens afterward.

1.Are we living in the end times?

This is a natural question to ask in a society that has changed more in the last century than in the many thousands that preceded it.

Weve invented technologies that would seem like magic to our ancestors. Using just the phones we carry with us, we can talk to and see people anywhere in the world. Weve cured incurable diseases, split the atom, and rocketed to the moon. More people are alive now than ever before, they live longer, and they enjoy a level of material prosperity unequaled in human history.

Yet there are dangers. People have been uprooted from their cultures and countries. Traditional values are under attack. Millions live under totalitarian regimes. The first half of the twentieth century saw two world wars that were cataclysmic global conflicts, and then we endured a decades-long Cold War with the prospect of imminent nuclear annihilation.

Today, we live with the threat that new and even more deadly wars could break out, with even more advanced military hardware. We face terrorism, pandemics, and social upheaval, and the uneasy prospect of technology running amok. Some are even contemplating the possibility that, because of artificial intelligence, we may face a technological singularity that could fundamentally transform or end the human race.

No wonder people ask if were living in the end times!

The answer is that we are . In his first letter, St. John makes a striking statement: Children, it is the last hour; and as you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come; therefore, we know that it is the last hour (1 John 2:18).

Not only does this passage contain an ominous reference to the Antichristeven multiple antichristsit twice repeats the bold declaration that it is the last hour. So, yes, there is a sense in which we are living in the end times.

But John wrote this in the first century. The last hour he speaks of has been going on for almost 2,000 years. So, although its true that we are living in the end times, this doesnt mean what many suppose. From a biblical perspective, the end timesand even the last hourcover a much broader sweep of history than wed initially guess.

To understand this, its helpful to look at a pair of passages from St. Peter. On the one hand, he tells his readers, The end of all things is at hand; therefore, keep sane and sober for your prayers (1 Pet. 4:7). On the other hand, he tells them, But do not ignore this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day (2 Pet. 3:8).

In other words: yes, we are near the end, but God doesnt reckon time the way we do. We cant calculate the time left in human terms.

This provides the key to understanding the sense in which were living in the end times. The Christian age is the final stage of world history, the last period in Gods plan. All the ages that preceded the coming of his Son are past, and there will be no future ages before the Second Coming and the consummation of the world. We are thus in the final periodthe end timesfrom Gods perspective.

But because God doesnt reckon time the way we do, we cant tell how long that age will last. We therefore need to be cautious about making predictions concerning how many years are left from a human perspective.

2.Did the first Christians expect Jesus to return in their lifetimes?

God did not reveal his plan of the ages all at once. As the centuries rolled on, he sent prophets to his people Israel, and they learned more about the shape of his plan. This is a concept that scholars refer to as progressive revelation , because the revelation happened in stages.

Jesus also taught his disciples progressively during the years he spent with them. Very quickly, they realized he was the Messiah (John 1:41), but they did not initially understand that his kingdom was not of this world (John 18:36). Instead, they expected him to be what most people understood the Messiah to bea political deliverer who would wage war against Israels oppressors, kick out the hated Romans, and restore political autonomy to the Jewish people.

They did not expect him to suffer, die on a cross, or rise from the dead. When he told them he would, St. Peter rebuked him and the disciples debated what he meant (Matt. 16:22, Mark 9:10). Even after his resurrection, they still asked him, Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel? (Acts 1:6).

His reply was, It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has fixed by his own authority (Acts 1:7), and he told them to wait to receive power from the Holy Spirit, after which they would be his witnesses throughout the world. They thus learned that there would be an extended period before the next step in Gods plan.