Judging by the words of the Savior, His return will be unexpected for the world. However, one should rather speak of an expected unexpectedness: it is no coincidence that He Himself compares the situation with the global flood and the destruction of Sodom. Why does it turn out this way? After all, the New Testament books say enough about...
Judging by the words of the Savior, His return will be unexpected for the world. However, one should rather speak of an expected unexpectedness: it is no coincidence that He Himself compares the situation with the global flood and the destruction of Sodom. Why does it turn out this way? After all, the New Testament books say enough about the day of the return of Jesus and the triumph of the Kingdom. Apparently, the issue here is not a lack of information. The issue is, rather, how seriously we take it. Today it is no longer a secret to anyone that even in the Christian environment, the theme of the second coming of Christ is perceived by many somewhat inadequately.
On the one hand, modern Christians are afraid of it. It is not surprising: after all, horrors and catastrophes are often associated with the second coming of the Savior. Of course, the Book of Revelation speaks of cataclysms and catastrophes, but it nonetheless ends with a description of a new heaven and a new earth, as well as Jerusalem descending from heaven — a symbol of the triumphant Church. However, this finale is ignored by many, and by apocalypse today even believers more often mean not a revelation (which is exactly what this word means in translation from Greek), but the last and final catastrophe that will put an end to the existence of humanity.
On the other hand, it is also no secret that many Christians today are satisfied with those medieval ideas about posthumous rewards and punishments, about paradise and hell, the roots of which should be sought not so much in the Bible, but in traditional Egyptian or Greek religious ideas. For many of them, Christianity has become associated not so much with the Messiah and the coming triumph of the Kingdom, but with achieving a good afterlife through the fulfillment of certain religious prescriptions.
With this state of affairs, it is not surprising that the return of the Savior becomes even for the "Christian" world that very expected unexpectedness. And, judging by His words, there can be no question of any preparation for the meeting with Him and with the Kingdom: a person either lives the life of the Kingdom, and then he is "taken," or he does not live it, and then he is "left." And it is not surprising: after all, the life of a Christian in the Kingdom is a long process, it is precisely a life that changes a person sometimes slowly, but steadily. And until the return of the Savior, such people can live side by side with those who have nothing to do with the Kingdom. And when He returns, it will be too late to start living a full spiritual life: after all, it also takes time to take root in the Kingdom.
Of course, the final choice can also be made on the Day of Judgment. But then, probably, the one who made it will have to be saved, in the figurative expression of the Apostle Paul, "as though through fire." The option is not the best, but it is still better this way than not at all.
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1:4 I found of thy children - Probably in their aunt's house, Jo2 1:13.Walking in the truth - In faith and love.
1:5 That which we had from the beginning - Of our Lord's ministry. Indeed it was, in some sense, from the beginning of the world. That we may love one another - More abundantly.
1:6 And this is the proof of true love, universal obedience built on the love of God. This - Love. Is the great commandment which ye have heard from the beginning - Of our preaching.
1:7 Carefully keep what ye have heard from the beginning, for many seducers are entered into the world, who confess not Jesus Christ that came in the flesh - Who disbelieve either his prophetic, or priestly, or kingly office. Whosoever does this is the seducer - From God. And the antichrist - Fighting against Christ.
1:8 That we lose not the things which we have wrought - Which every apostate does. But receive a full reward - Having fully employed all our talents to the glory of him that gave them.Here again the apostle modestly transfers it to himself.
1:9 Receive this as a certain rule: Whosoever transgresseth - Any law of God. Hath not God - For his Father and his God.He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ - Believing and obeying it. He hath both the Father and the Son - For his God.