The Time is Coming and Now Is

“The time is coming and now is!”

This is a recurring phrase used by Jesus in the Gospel of John (John 4.23; 5.25; 16.32).

The phrase is mainly in a prophetic or eschatological framework.

The Gospel of Matthew uses the term time, also translated as hour. Matthew uses it in a prophetic framework often.

Mark and Luke use the term time or hour as well, but not as often as Matthew and John.

re-imagining time

The New Testament is not written in King James English, but rather in Koine Greek, or the common Greek. There are at least 4 words for time in Greek: chronos, kairos, aion, and hora.

The term chronos is where we get our term chronological. It is time in sequence, very linear. This is the term we can most relate to in western civilization.

The term kairos is kind of like our phrase “window of opportunity.” It is the opportune time. It is the time to make a decision, or to change your life.

The term aion is translated as aeon in English. It refers to an age or an era in light of eternity.

Finally, the term hora can be translated as hour or time. This is the term I’m referring to in this article. Often times it is used to mark a literal hour in the Gospels. However, it has a mystical quality as well. It is used in the above phrase, “The time is coming and now is.” Hora is also used other phrases like, “The hour has come.” It can be thought of as the right time, or as high time.

time in context

I’m not talking about the context of each verse in the book of John. I’m talking about the context of the statement itself. We could go into depth about each verse and the surrounding chapter, the meaning of each greater context. But John uses the word time differently than the other Gospel writers, and he does so on three occasions.

“The time is coming and now is.”

In my faith tribe, we have a tendency to wait for the cataclysmic events of the end times. There will be these great days of reckoning when God comes back to set all things right.

“The time is coming…”

On the other hand, there are whole strains of Theology that are not cataclysmic in eschatology. Instead they espouse a gradual unfolding of events.

“…and now is.”

However, the immediate context for time in these words of Christ refer both to what is coming (cataclysmic) and what is arriving now (gradual).

little “e-” eschatons

There is a way of looking at eschatology that is both cataclysmic and gradual. It is most commonly referred to as the now and not yet.

It is important because it is not only dealing with eschatology. This is a way of looking at Christian transformation. We tend to look back to the cross and the resurrection to give us hope for transformation in the moment. However, the now and not yet approach looks forward to what we are becoming and to what we will become on that great day when God sets everything right. It is not so much a revival of what we have had in the past. Rather it is an anticipation of what we are becoming and what we will become on that great day when God sets everything right in the future.

What we call revival, others might call in-breakings now of what God is doing in the future.

The now and not yet… the time is coming and now is.

In eschatology, we would say there is going to be an Eschaton… capital E-. This is that great Day of the Lord. It is the time when He sets up shop on Earth. This is when we rule and reign with Him. It is what we are fully anticipating. This is the hour when He sets all things right.

But what makes this line of thinking transformative is a recognition of eschatons, lowercase e-.

These are the in-breakings.

This is the time and hour when we get a glimpse of who we are becoming and who we will be!

We know there will be an Eschaton (capital E-) when Heaven comes down once and for all.

However, God graces us with many eschatons (lower case e-) all along the way, when Heaven draws near… brushes with eternity… when we feel the rush of angels wings.

“The time is coming and now is.”

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