Eschatology
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At Christ’s coming the saints whom the Lord will find alive upon the
earth will suffer death and receive immortality |
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The
Roman Catholic Church teaches that at Christ’s coming, the saints whom the
Lord will find alive upon the earth will suffer death before receiving
immortality. This doctrine was taught by Augustine of Hippo (354-430), one of
the so called Church Fathers. For he wrote in his book The City of God the following words: ‘But the apostle has said
nothing here regarding, the resurrection of the dead; but in his first
Epistle to the Thessalonians he says, "We would not have you to be
ignorant brethren, concerning them which are asleep," etc. These words of
the apostle most distinctly proclaim the future resurrection of the dead,
when the Lord Christ shall come to judge the quick and the dead. But it is
commonly asked whether those whom our Lord shall find alive upon earth,
personated in this passage by the apostle and those who were alive with him,
shall never die at all, or shall pass with incomprehensible swiftness through
death to immortality in the very moment during which they shall be caught up
along with those who rise again to meet the Lord in the air? For we cannot
say that it is impossible that they should both die and revive again while
they are carried aloft through the air. For the words, "And so shall we
ever be with the Lord," are not to be understood as if he meant that we
shall always remain in the air with the Lord; for He Himself shall not remain
there, but shall only pass through it as He comes. For we shall go to meet
Him as He comes, not where He remains; but "so shall we be with the
Lord," that is, we shall be with Him possessed of immortal bodies wherever
we shall be with Him. We seem compelled to take the words in this sense, and
to suppose that those whom the Lord shall find alive upon earth shall in that
brief space both suffer death and receive immortality: for this same apostle
says, "In Christ shall all be made alive;" while, speaking of the
same resurrection of the body, he elsewhere says, "That which thou
sowest is not quickened, except it die." How, then, shall those whom
Christ shall find alive upon earth be made alive to immortality in Him if
they die not, since on this very account it is said, "That which thou
sowest is not quickened, except it die?" Or if we cannot properly speak
of human bodies as sown, unless in so far as by dying they do in some sort
return to the earth, as also the sentence pronounced by God against the
sinning father of the human race runs, "Earth thou art, and unto earth
shalt thou return," we must acknowledge that those whom Christ at His
coming shall find still in the body are not included in these words of the apostle
nor in those of Genesis; for, being caught up into the clouds, they are
certainly not sown, neither going nor returning to the earth, whether they
experience no death at all or die for a moment in the air. But, on the other
hand, there meets us the saying of the same apostle when he was speaking to
the Corinthians about the resurrection of the body, "We shall all
rise," or, as other manuscripts read, "We shall all sleep."
Since, then, there can be no resurrection unless death has preceded,
and since we can in this passage understand by sleep nothing else than death,
how shall all either sleep or rise again if so many persons whom Christ shall
find in the body shall neither sleep nor rise again? If, then, we believe
that the saints who shall be found alive at Christ's coming, and shall be
caught up to meet Him, shall in that same ascent pass from mortal to immortal
bodies, we shall find no difficulty in the words of the apostle, either when
he says, "That which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die,"
or when he says, "We Shall all rise," or "all sleep," for
not even the saints shall be quickened to immortality unless they first die,
however briefly; and consequently they shall not be exempt from resurrection
which is preceded by sleep, however brief’ (The City of God, Book XX, chapter
20) |
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Confutation |
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The
Holy Scripture teaches that when Jesus returns from heaven, the dead in
Christ will be raised (that is, their souls will be reunited with their
bodies) while those who are alive will be changed without seeing death. For
Paul wrote to the Corinthians: “Behold, I tell you a mystery: We shall not
all sleep, but we shall all be changed – in a moment, in the twinkling of an
eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be
raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed” (1 Corinthians 15:51-52 –
NKJV), and to the Thessalonians: “For this we say to you by the word of the
Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by
no means precede those who are asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from
heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of
God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain
shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the
air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord” (1 Thessalonians |