Christians are expected to live their lives with the realization that, with the advent of Christ, they are living in the “end times.” This does not mean they will see the end of the world in their lifetime (though they might); rather, they are to engage the way in the incarnation the eschaton has become immanent with material creation. God the Word, who is the “first’ in and through whom all things are made, is also the “last” to whom all things come together. That is, God the Word is the Alpha and the Omega, and by way of the incarnation, the two come together as one; in the incarnation, the grace of the eschaton is unleashed upon the world. This allows the world, everyone together but also in their own particular distinctions, to have the freedom they need to establish for themselves who and what they will be in eternity. That is, in the God-man, we find the eschaton entered into history to help direct it to its proper end and also to give everyone the freedom they need to determine what their own personal end will be like. Time continues to move on as, moment by moment, history finds itself moving towards its eventual end. Christians, therefore, are to assimilate or engage what has been brought into time thanks to the incarnation, that is the grace and enlightenment the incarnation brings, and use it to help what happens in world history, making it better:
While it certainly is true that the New Testament commandment of love draws its distinctiveness and radicality from eschatology, which provides a future-oriented motivation for Christian life (particularly in the pre-Easter preaching of Jesus), ultimately this distinctiveness and radicality come from the fact that the eschaton has already broken through into our world with the coming of Jesus – and definitively with Jesus’ death and resurrection. Thus, the loving assimilation of Jesus’ life and death of service on the part of his disciples must also be seen as the breakthrough of the eschaton.[1]
The eschaton now can be found in the world, even if it remains transcendent to the world as well. There is no absolute division between time and eternity, between the world and the kingdom of God, even if we recognize that there are distinctions between the two. In light of the incarnation, we should learn that the barrier between them is porous, and that the categories we use are fluid. The presence of the eschaton, and with it, the kingdom of God, touches everything, giving everything and everyone what they needs to realize their proper end. Everything is being drawn towards the eschaton and the kingdom of God; the more anyone embraces this call towards the eschaton in their lives, the more they interact with and engage it in its immanence, the more they will be able to see it is already there, within them, even as it is around them and all creation. What they did not have was the means to perceive the kingdom of God because their sin defiled their spiritual vision. Now, with grace, their spiritual senses can be cleansed, allowing them to perceive what they could not perceive before. Even Berdyaev, who, in some ways, is close to having a Gnostic-like view of the distinction between the kingdom of God and material creation, realized that there can be no absolute division between the two :
In that case the end and the coming of the Kingdom of God are not conceived as belonging only to the other world. We come into touch with the end in every creative act of the spirit. The Kingdom of God comes not with observation. The noumen operates in phenomena, but this is not uninterrupted evolution and not the truth rhythmic order of necessity. [2]
We are to embrace the Spirit, the freedom which the Spirit gives us, and the transformation which comes along with it; if we do, we will see things in a new way, including the influence of the eschaton upon us and world history. We will be able to see the penetration of the kingdom of God in all things, and with it, the presence of God everywhere, even as all things will be seen to exist in and with God in God’s kingdom:
Once a person has, through divine assistance, become recollected from external concerns, and from being “multiple” he has become a “single” person, then form this point on he will begin to see in himself things that are new, and find in himself in a hidden way perceptible intimations and signs. Then, from here he will have a taste, in symbol, of that Renewal of which, at the end <of time>, the entirely community <of human beings> will be held worthy. This is because many times, including in the midst of the hours of daytime, he perceives in himself that the mind is concentrated into itself, without any concern for itself, through an inexplicable silence. Let the reader understand! This happens to such a person even in the office, and at the time of reading <Scripture>.[3]
And, as Christians, we must understand how all things are brought together in and through Jesus, the Word of God:
Perfect contemplation is to see all the created universe in the One and the One in the whole created universe. Nothing is lost. It is a mistake to think that when we go beyond this world to the One, we lose this world or that when we see God in this world we lose the One. The whole creation is in God and God is in the whole creation. In Christian terms the whole creation is in the ‘Word’. God utters his Word, he utters the whole creation from the beginning to the end of time. All is present in that one Word and fully present in it.[4]
While we are called to experience God and God’s love in or through a contemplative embrace, we are not to sit still doing nothing but engage such contemplation. We are to act and live our lives actualizing the eschatological reality brought to us in and through Christ. Every moment is a moment in which the eschaton comes to us, gives grace. Every moment is a moment which the eschaton collects into itself, and by doing so, bring all moments in time together as one, allowing them to be interdependent with each other and influence each other. As Christ does this, as Christ integrates all things in himself as the immanent eschaton, he shares his grace, transfiguring all things, elevating them so that they become something greater than they would have been without it. “To live eschatologically means to allow God to enter history, not only at the end, but at any other moment in time – made possible by the Resurrection as a historic event – that transfiguring time.”[5]
The eschaton is both the goal to which all things flow and also the means by which that goal is made possible. It is brought to us in the incarnation, God the Word, for the one who declares himself to be the First and the Last comes to us and gives us the means to participate, even now, in the eschaton. We are moving towards it, even as we find it is already in and with us. We should embrace it as it embraces us. We should work with it so that we can have the grace to act with it, to act with creativity and love, bringing to time and space, a reflection of the glory which is to come, the glory which transcends all other glory, the glory which has no end.
[1] Heinz Schürmann, “How Normative Are The Values and Precepts of the New Testament” in Principles of Christian Morality. Trans. Graham Harrison (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1986; repr. 2006), 21.
[2] Nicolas Berdyaev, The Beginning of the End. Trans. R.M. French (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1952; 2nd. ed. San Rafael, California: Semantron Press, 2009), 28.
[3] St. Isaac of Nineveh, Headings on Spiritual Knowledge (The Second Part, Chapters 1-3). Trans. Sebastian Brock (Yonkers, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2022), 201 [Chapter 3; Fourth Discourse].
[4] Bede Griffiths, River of Compassion (Warwick, NY: Amity House, 1987), 222.
[5] Maksim Vasiljević, Theology as a Surprise (Yonkers, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2018), 40.
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