As to the time of the Advent, it is near (Ja 5%,
1 P 47, He 105, Rev 22’, Ro 134, 1Co7*). ‘The Lord is at hand’ (Ph 4°). ‘Yet a little while, and he that cometh will come, and will not tarry’ (He
1051), St. Paul expects His arrival within his own lifetime (1 Th 425, 1Co 1551. 83), Yet the exact time is unknown (1 Th 5%, 1 Ti 6"). There are certain preliminary signs which must be accomplished (the destruction of Antichrist, 2 Th 2°; the conversion of Israel, Ro 11*:*; ef. Eph 1° ‘a dispensation of the fulness of the times’). It is with these pre- liminary signs (the things shortly to come to pass, 1) that Revelation chiefly deals. The coming to which the seer looks forward most vividly is not the Advent of the Last Day, but the impending judgment which awaits unfaithful Christians (Rev 55. 18 38-1), When the day comes it will be as a thief in the night (1 Th 5?, 2 P 3!°). Hence there is need of patience (Ja 5’), and of watchfulness (1 Th 5°). Even in St. Paul’s day there were those who doubted the resurrection (1 Co 15"; cf. 2 Ti 217-18), In the later books such doubt has become common. 2 Peter speaks of mockers who ask ‘Where is the promise of his coming? For fron. the day the fathers fell asleep, all things continue az they were from the beginning of the creation,’ and answers their objection by reminding them that one day with the Lord is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. ‘The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some count slack- ness, but is long-suffering to you-ward, not wishing that any should perish’ (38:5).
From this brief survey the importance of the Parousia in the apostolic thought has been made manifest. Especially significant in this connexion is the teaching of St. Paul. The Christian to St. Paul is indeed already a spiritual man (Ro 85- 10), and as such a new creature (2 Co 5"). Even in this life he rejoices in the peace of Christ (Ro 15%), and sits with Him in heavenly places (Eph 2%, ef. He 65). But his full salvation les in the future, in that completed kingdom to which his thought continually turns (see SALVATION). Entrance to this kingdom is the goal of all his endeavour (Ph 311-14), the hope of it he is sustained when all seems darkest. ithout it he would be of all men the most pinens (1 Co 15). Thus the entire thought οἵ St. Paul is dominated by the eae tation of the speedy coming of Christ. his expectation he finds expressed in the frequent cele- bration of the Eucharist, which shows forth the death of Christ ‘ until he come’ (1Co 1138). It gives character to his ethics, leading him to desire for himself and for his disciples freedom from those family cares which may render their service less eflicient during that short time which remains before the coming of the Lord (1 Co7). It is ever peat in his prayers, whether, in his fear lest he rimself fail to reach the goal, he commit himself to Him who is able to keep that which he has entrusted to Him against that day (2 Ti 1"), or, in his fatherly anxiety for those converts who are to be his glory and crown at the Parousia (2 Co 1"), he prays that the good work begun in them may
be perfected unto the day of Jesus Christ (Ph 1°).
PAROUSIA
PAROUSIA 679
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This sense of the nearness of the time leads to & passing over in St. Paul’s thought of the period between death and the Advent. The middle state, when referred to, is described as a sleep (1 Th 4%, 1 Co 15), from which the disciples of Christ shall awake to share the gladness and triumph of the Parousia. This is not, indeed, always the case. In certain important passages (2 Co δ᾽", Ph 12%) we find St. Paul’s thought passing over into that mysterious region, and expressing the hope of a communion with Christ which nothing can disturb, not even death before the Parousia. Especially significant in this connexion is 2 Co 5', where St. Paul associates this hope with the possession of a new Rady to be put on at death. In this much- discussed passage some interpreters find evidence of a departure from St. Paul’s earlier views of the future—a departure to be accounted for only on the ‘ound of experiences which have led him to revise s former expectation of himself living to witness the Parousia, and hence have brought into the foreground of his thinking the life immediately after death. Hence they attribute to it great historic significance, as marking the transition between St. Paul’s own earlier thinking and that type of doctrine represented in the Fourth Gospel.
ee especially Schmiedel, Hdcomm. ii. pt. i. pp. 200-202. Cf. also art. RESURRECTION.
iii. THE PAROUSIA IN THE FouRTH GOSPEL.— With the Fourth Gospel, we find ourselves trans- ported into a different atmosphere. The Coming at the Last Day is not, indeed, denied (cf. 5% 6% 21%, 1 Jn 2%, possibly also 14°; cf. Stevens, Joh. Theol.
. 333), but it is no longer the centre of interest.
he coming on which Jesus lays most stress in His farewell words to His disciples is not His judicial coming at the end of the age, but His personal Advent to His disciples, whether physical at His resurrection or spiritual in the gift of the Paraclete (Jn 14%), This fact is the more significant, because these discourses take the place in the Fourth Gospel of the ‘ Apocalypse’ of the Synoptics with its prediction of the Parousia and the destruction of Jerusalem. The Day to which reference is repeatedly made in these dis- courses (14” 16%) is not the ‘ Last Day’ of the judgment, but the gospel dispensation. So of the allied conceptions, the resurrection and the judg- ment. The resurrection at the Last Day is not denied, but it is not upon this that Jesus lays the most stress, but rather upon that present resur- rection which introduces a man here and now into the life which shall never end. ‘I know,’ says Martha, ‘ that [my brother] shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day.’ Jesus answers, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. He that be- lieveth on me, though he die, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth on me shall never die’ (11%-%; cf. the passages which speak of eternal life as a present possession, e.g. 6% 17%). So of the judgment of which Christ is the agent. While its decisions are not finally disclosed till the last day, they are being pares upon men here andnow. ‘ He that believeth not hath been judged already’ (318), This emphasis on present spiritual life is not, indeed, peculiar to St. John. We have found it already in St. Paul, who no less than St. John has the doctrine of a spiritual resurrection. But with St. Paul the chiel stress falls on the future, with St. John on the present. This change of emphasis, while no doubt chiefly due to the mystic tone which pervades the entire Gospel, may be partly ἘΝ ταν by the changed con- ditions under which it was composed. t. Paul and his generation have passed away. The period between death and the last day looms ever larger, as an increasing company of believers pass over into the unseen world. The Church is firmly estab-