Thread by @kennethtanner

This is my answer now about my end, the world’s end, and when Christ is coming again. Perfect eschatology.

Bear in mind that the definition of world here is not “the earth” or “the cosmos” or “material creation” but “the fallen order” or “the realm that is captive to death.”

“All who listen to the depths of the gospel and live it so completely that none of it remains veiled from them care very little about whether the end of the world will come suddenly and all at once or gradually and little by little.

“Instead, they bear in mind only that each individual’s end or death will arrive on a day and hour unknown to him and that upon each one of us ‘the day of the Lord will come like a thief.’

“It is important therefore to be vigilant, whether in the evening (that is, in one’s youth) or in the middle of the night (that is, at human life’s darkest hour) or when the cock crows (at full maturity) or in the morning (when one is well advanced in old age).

“When God the Word comes and brings an end to the progress of this life, he will gather up the one who gave ‘no sleep to his eyes nor slumber to his eyelids’ and kept the commandment of the One who said, ‘Be vigilant at all times.’

“But I know another kind of end for the righteous person who is able to say along with the apostle, ‘Far be it from me to glory except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom the world is crucified to me and I to the world.’

“In a ... sense, the end of the world has already come for the person to whom the world is crucified. And to one who is dead to worldly things the day of the Lord has already arrived, for the Son of man comes to the soul of the one who no longer lives for sin or for the world.”

—Origen of Alexandria, saint, theologian, exegete, Commentary on Matthew, 56.

The opening of that last paragraph has the sort of weight I feel when Paul says, “And I will show you a still more excellent way.”
(1 Corinthians 12:31)