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ESCHATOLOGY
ESCHATOLOGY
a warning of impending judgment into an evangel of salvation and forgiveness.
(5) The free gifts of God. — To describe the apostolic gospel simply as a promise of escape from the wrath to come would be inadequate; it was a promise rich with new gifts and blessings — e.g. the outflo\%'ing of the Divine Spirit (Ac 2^- ^®'* 5^^), and the ' seasons of refreshing,' which would sustain the elect until the return of the Messiah and the 'restoration of all things' (Ac S'^-^i ; see below, I. 4 (5)). And these blessings were not to be labori- ously earned, but were freely offered to aU who would 'repent' and 'believe.'
4. The application of the apostolic message to the chief doctrines of the Last Things. — The ideas underlying the most primitive Christian eschato- logy, as we have outlined it above, are so unfamiliar to us that their bearing upon the great problems of the future life is not at first sight evident, and requires a brief consideration.
(1) The Second Coming of our Lord. — Most early Christians doubtless conceived of this in the traditional dramatic form, in accordance with the teaching of Enoch and other Jewish apocalypses. On the other hand, it should be remembered that (a) the ' unearthly ' conception of the Messiah set forth in the Enochic ' Son of Man ' would be modi- fied by the recollection of the historical human personality of Jesus the Messiah ; and (b) the apocalyptic idea of Messiahship, though one-sided, and therefore inadequate for a satisfactory Christo- logy, was yet a high and transcendent ideal — one wliich needed to be supplemented and enlarged, rather than corrected. It formed a good founda- tion, upon which Christian thought and experience were able to build a fuller and truer doctrine of our Lord's Person and Second Coming.
(2) The Last Judgment. — This also was, in primitive Christian thought, closely linked with the Person of our Lord as Messianic Judge. It was thought of as limited in time to a date in the near future, and probably localized at some place on the earth (perhaps Jerusalem ; cf. Ac 6'*, I P 4^^). Such ideas, however crude, were capable of being ' spiritualized ' in course of time, without any breach in the continuity of Christian teaching. A more serious problem is raised by the difficulty of reconciling the ddctrine of a universal Judgment (Ac 17^', I P 4') with the doctrine oi forgiveness, by which some men are ' acquitted ' beforehand in anticipation of the Judgment. This is a hard, perhaps an insoluble, problem ; but it is not peculiar to eschatology ; for it confronts us wher- ever the ideas of forgiveness and justice are placed side by side.
(3) The. Intermediate State. — So long as the Return of the Lord was expected to occur immedi- ately, theie was little room for any speculations with regard to the state of those who had ' fallen asleep in Christ.' The 'waiting-time' seemed so brief that it did not invite much consideration. To expect to find in the NT authoritative state- ments either for or against prayers for the dead, or formal distinctions between an intermeiliate state of purgation and a final state of bliss, is to forget the peculiar eschatological outlook of primi- tive Christianity, and to look for an anachronism. The beginnings of Christian speculation concerning the Intermediate State come before us at quite an early stage (e.g. in 1 Thess.) ; but they do not be- long to the earliest stage of all.
The case was somewhat different with regard to the faithful who had died before Christ came. Christians naturally wished to know how these would be enabled to hear the 'good tidings,' and share in the forgiveness and salvation now ofFered by Christ. Two well-known passages in 1 Peter bear upon this point : the ' preaching to the spirits
in prison * (1 P 3^^), and the ' preaching to the dead ' (1 P 4*). A detailed discussion is impossible here ; see the Commentaries ad loc. In the present wx'itex^s Primitive Christian EscJiatology, p. 254 tf., it is contended that the passages should be inter- preted in accordance with the methods of Jewish apocalyptic ; and that their main purpose is to teach that the ' good tidings ' have been proclaimed by Christ to those who had died before His Coming, so that at His Return they may have the same opportunities of repentance as those who are alive at the time. Broadly, too, we may see in these passages Scriptural warrant for the view that there may be opportunities for repentance after death.
(4) The Resurrection. — Questionings with regard to the nature and manner of the resurrection are scarcely seen at all in the earliest eschatology as reflected in Acts and the Judseo-Christian Epistles (see Lake, The Earlier Epistles of St. Paid, p. 91 f.). Generally the references apply to our Lord's Re- surrection, and even where the general resurrection is implied (Ac 236-8 24^6 266-8) no details as to the manner thereof are forthcoming. In Ac 24" its universal scope ('both of the just and unjust') is asserted ; and in He 6'* ^ dfdo-rao-ts veKpQv is in- cluded among ' the principles of Christ ' which are too well known to need a detailed exposition. But we find nothing corresponding to the Pauline discussion as to the nature of the resurrection-body. In the Jewish apocalypses, the doctrine fluctuates from an extremely material conception to one which is purely spiritual ; and probably the early Christians inherited various views on this point. The idea that our Lord's Resurrection was a ' first- fruits ' of the general resurrection is implied in Ac 26*^^, and this was destined in time to influence the Christian doctrine of the resurrection.